


The Spaces Between

by SpinnerDolphin



Series: Fair Winds and Following Seas [2]
Category: Torchwood, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: F/M, Gen, Just... Other Realms, M/M, Not-Realms of the Dead, Realms of the Dead, The Darkness - Freeform, Weevils (Torchwood)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-15 16:45:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 63,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13617483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpinnerDolphin/pseuds/SpinnerDolphin
Summary: Somehow, Ianto Jones finds himself in a field for a single, shocking moment. It is all very confusing.Somewhere, Veralidaine Sarrasri, Numair Salmalin, Jack Harkness and Alanna the Lioness sit beside a smoking ruin and wonder what happens next.There are terrible things to come, and the Guardian is still lost, but if Jack is very, very clever, or very, very lucky, he’ll get the happily ever after he so desperately desires.





	1. Prologue

 

_“And you always remember what you kill, don't you, Jack?”_

-Adam, “Adam”

 

 

* * *

_IANTO JONES._

_Ianto Jones, I do believe I have someone you want to see._

_Won’t you wake up?_

_That’s it. Come on, now, Ianto Jones. Follow my voice. That’s it. I have your Jack Harkness._

_Yes, Captain Jack Harkness. Your Jack. Follow me, now. Follow me._

… _Jack?_

Ianto Jones, deceased, blinked in the starlight. There were—things, sensations. He was—somewhere. Confused, he put a hand over his heart—was it beating? — and was startled to find that he was still wearing his gray vest. There was grass beneath his feet and stars above his head. Was he in a meadow? What the hell? It was dark, but it was _real_ dark, not the dream-dark or the nothing-dark that had happened after Jack had begged him not to go.

“That’s—different,” he said to no one in particular. The words whispered out into the warm night, and Ianto reveled in the sensations. Wasn’t he supposed to be dead? Hadn’t someone said Jack’s—

“ _Ianto?_ ” A voice that he had missed dearly rung out. He turned.

Jack Harkness, in his ever-present greatcoat, was standing there in the night and he was a sight for sore—or, well, dead, anyway—eyes. His dark hair was tousled and his hands greasy, as if he’d been working with machinery all day. Jack’s blue eyes were wide, devastated, and fixed on Ianto.

“ _Jack?_ ” Ianto breathed. He made to take a step forward, questions burning in his throat, but an arm stopped him. Ianto blinked again and followed the arm up to a shoulder up to a torso, where he found a hunched old woman with a staff. She had a patch over her eye and a grizzly face, and she radiated power like nothing he had ever seen before.

“Not yet, dearie,” she growled at him, and Ianto, vaguely affronted, gaped at her. “We can make it better, Captain Harkness,” she added, voice gravelly and persuasive as she looked back at Jack. “We can bring them back. All of them.”

What the _hell_?

Another voice broke the silence and Ianto jumped a little, startled. There were three people standing beside a fire—how had he not noticed them?—and a woman, lovely with brown curly hair, shouted, “You leave him alone!” Ianto blinked again, realizing that she held something purple and serpentine to her chest. Was that a _dragon_? Where the hell _was_ he? “Don’t listen to her, Jack, it isn’t permanent,” she cried, “The things she brings back to life don’t always stay that way!”

Right, well, that answered one question, Ianto thought wryly.

“Daine!” A tall, dark haired man gasped beside her. The woman shot him a fierce look.

“If you weren’t a godborn, I’d kill you for that,” the old woman said offhandedly, not taking her eyes from Jack. Ianto glanced at her uneasily, wondering what a godborn was, and musing briefly that it didn’t sound good. The old woman had brought him back to life? How? More importantly, _why_? “As it is, I might take your lover instead,” The old woman threatened the girl with the dragon, and Ianto saw a short, stocky redheaded woman rest a hand on her hip. Was that a _sword_? “Your Lindhall Reed’s little beast remained, did it not? It’s the choice of the soul, no one else’s.”

I’m staying, Ianto thought fiercely, glancing back at Jack, who looked as though his heart was breaking. Oh, Jack, I’m staying. “Don’t I have any say in this?” Ianto broke in quietly.

“Ianto,” Jack whispered, as though unable to say anything else. Ianto opened his mouth to reply, to try to soothe the broken look that had stolen over Jack’s face, but Jack ripped his eyes away, shaking himself all over and then turning back to the old woman. “What have you done!” he snarled, “What have you _done_ to him? Your Black God said that you couldn’t touch the dead of my world. What the _hell_ have you done?”

She didn’t do anything, Ianto thought.

“She said your name,” he answered dreamily, and Jack’s eyes locked back onto him, burning blue, just like they had been when Ianto had died. “I heard it, so I followed. I thought you might’ve finally died. I looked for you, you know. I thought… in the spaces between, before you woke up each time. I might be able to see you.”

Jack gave him a stricken look. “Ianto,” he stuttered, “I’m sorry, I—”

“This isn’t fair, goddess,” the redheaded woman with the sword standing before the fire said quietly. Ianto glanced at her, half annoyed that she’d interrupted Jack, although he could tell by Jack’s tone that he wasn’t going to say anything helpful anyway.

“It was never a question of fairness, Lioness,” the old woman, apparently a goddess, and what the hell, told her. “It was a question of—”

“Of manipulation!” Jack spat, and Ianto suddenly understood. He was being used as a bargaining piece, although he didn’t know what the bargain was. That woman called Lioness was right, he thought—this wasn’t fair.

“Do not interrupt me, immortal—” Ianto could feel the old woman tensing beside him, and power wrapped around her like a blanket. He reached for his gun, but of course it was not there.

“Ianto, they want me to kill,” Jack cried, turning back to him. Ianto’s breath, unused for so long (and how long had it been since he’d breathed his last?) caught at the intensity. “They want me to kill a hundred civilians: men, women and children—not human, but not—”

“Then don’t do it,” Ianto interrupted immediately, locking eyes with Jack’s desperate, mourning blue ones. “Don’t listen to her, Jack.”

“How _dare_ you?” the old woman spat, spinning to face him. The power rippled indignantly behind her, but Ianto was not afraid. “How _dare_ you defy me—”

“I’m not in your jurisdiction,” Ianto said in his best receptionist’s voice. I’ll tie you up in red tape so tightly you won’t be able to _blink,_ he thought viciously. If you think you can manipulate Jack Harkness, then you’ve never met Ianto Jones. “You haven't tied me to this place, or its laws. You can't, unless I let you. I'm letting you hold me here, now, but I came of my own free will. I can leave of it as well.” He knew it was true down to his very dead bones. The only thing she could do to him was make him leave, which wouldn’t matter if he chose to do that anyway.

There was no bargain without the bargaining piece, after all. If he left, he left this goddess without a bribe, and he left Jack without the temptation. He looked back to Jack, and guilt filled him. “I love you. I’m sorry I left.” And sorry I'm about to do it again, he thought. 

Ianto took a deep breath. He wasn't sure how he did it precisely, only that he did; the goddess' hold on him slipped, the world began to darken.

“I miss you,” Jack whispered, and Ianto’s heart, so long unused to beating and slowing, now, leapt for a moment. “I’m sorry, I—I—”

“It was never your fault, Jack.” It was important that Jack knew this. “I’ll look for you.”

_Darkness. Silence._

_No._

_I’ll find you._


	2. Chapter 1

**Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?**

**_Not I,_ says Slaughter, locked in her kennel. **

**_Nor I,_ says Malady, barred in his cage. **

**_Nor I,_ says Starvation, caught in his chains. **

**_And who dares to question me?_   The Chaos Queen in her cage of dead matter and star fire, trapped until the next star is born, peers out through the bars. **

“I am the Bad Wolf.”

**And the cage melts, and Uusoae is free.**

\-----

Numair Salmalin felt as though he’d been kicked by a horse.

Six days ago, he’d expended more magic than he had in ages – not since he’d battled Inar Hadensra in the fields of the Immortals War – to fight an inevitable lightning strike on a ship made for the air. It had been the epitome of idiocy and it hadn’t worked to boot. Guilt still sunk somewhere in the pit of his heart. Over a hundred people had died.

Numair sighed. The last few weeks had been interesting, to say the least, and the amount that he’d learned was astounding. Even still, so much death on his shoulders took its toll. He glanced at Jack Harkness and wondered how the man coped.

“So explain this again,” he asked, trying to distract himself.

Jack quirked a reluctant smile. He was sitting cross legged next to Numair inside of a ring of stones that marked their camp. It was barely dusk. The leaves were just starting to cast shadows instead of glowing gold in the sun.

Jack fiddled with a contraption he’d salvaged from the ruined ship. It was a small metal box, unevenly shaped, more like a trapezoid than a square.  

“It’s food storage,” Jack said. “It creates a force field and then shrinks things down; they used it to keep food fresh. We can make it into a sort of holding cell, if we’re lucky. Think of it as one of your protection spells, Numair. Like the kind you put around camp.” He nodded to the stones that made a large circle around their fire and bedrolls.

The spell around camp had been a truly pathetic attempt at casting. Numair was so tired that the stones might as well have been for decoration, for all the good they were doing.

Beyond his spell was the meadow, and the great, smoking ship and the dead. Jack had vehemently forbidden any of them to go inside. He said it was still dangerous, but Numair had a feeling it was because Jack didn’t want them to see it.

He wasn’t really sure how he felt about that. Numair had killed Inar Hadensra with what amounted to his bare hands, never mind what had happened in his school days in Carthak. He’d even fought Chaos things in the Immortals War; that was the most disturbing thing he could imagine. Daine had not only fought beside Numair but also stood defiant before gods. She’d battled Chaos things too, and killed Ozorne with nothing but the silver claw that hung around her throat. Mithros knew how many people Alanna had killed serving the realm. No dead aliens could amount to that kind of horror.

They’d all seen their fair share, and even created a fair share. That Jack was protecting them from it was—good intentioned, he was sure, but also a little condescending.  

But on the other hand...

Numair watched a lazy curl of smoke as it rose from the burnt-out ship. Even after six days, parts of it were still smoldering. They’d done all they could, buried what bodies they could get to, although the number was depressingly small. They’d all been inside, after all; only a few unlucky ones had been cast out by the electrical charge, thrown like rags into the meadow. None of them were fully intact; it was just pieces. The horror wasn’t just the carnage—it was that their gods had caused it. He swallowed. Maybe Jack was doing them a favor after all.

After six days, it was time to move on; they still had a job to do. Numair turned back to Jack and his black box.

“But if it’s storage for food, how could something live in it?” Numair tilted his head at the small, inconspicuous thing. It didn’t look like much.

“If I fiddle with it, maybe,” Jack replied, carefully pulling at a panel, and exposing a net of bright metal that he called _circuitry_ beneath. “But it certainly beats offering up weevils as some sort of sacrifice.” He scowled. Numair winced.

The gods were not pleased. They had been visited by the Graveyard Hag the night before the ship was destroyed, and she had tried to persuade Jack to kill the aliens by bringing back his dead lover, a man called Ianto Jones. Jack had fallen to pieces, but ultimately refused, and let his Ianto slip back into death.

The Graveyard Hag had been furious, and that night the gods destroyed the ship in a horrific lightning storm that Numair was sure he’d see in his nightmares for years to come. Daine’s mentor, the male badger god, had ordered Jack afterwards to find these weevils, creatures from yet another world, in the forests on the Great Road East. Jack was determined that the weevils would not die the way the Nepthalae had. Numair had to say he agreed with him. Jack had proven himself a good man after all, underneath the lies he’d spun when Numair had first met him. After everything, it seemed that Jack was his friend after all. He was a con, but he’d been genuine in his attempt to help, even though he had failed.

“I suppose so,” Numair said, craning his neck to see what Jack was doing to the little box. “Do you need me to power it?” He felt for his power reserves. He had depressingly little, after the protective shielding around their camp site, and he still felt groggy.

“It’d be appreciated,” Jack said. “Not right now, though.” His blue eyes flickered up to Numair and then down to the machine.

Before Numair could reply, there was a crashing sound from the nearby brush; she wasn't bothering to hide the sound of her step. She must have had a successful hunt, then.

“You got that thing working yet?” Alanna shouldered through the trees, bow in hand.

Numair smiled warmly at her. “Any luck with dinner?” 

Sure enough, Alanna held up two rabbits.

“Oh, good,” Jack said. He put the machine aside and rose to take them from her, nodding a greeting, “I was just getting hungry. What will Daine eat?”

“More fish.” Daine walked over from the other side of camp, Kitten bounding at her heels. She set down an armful of firewood. Numair stood with what he was sure was a silly smile and reached to give her a kiss on the cheek, which she accepted. Kit squeaked in disgust and trotted over to Jack. from the corner of his eye, Numair saw Jack greet her with an awkward pat on the head when she rose up on her haunches, chattering at him.

“Sorry, dearest,” Numair told Daine, releasing her. “When we get to Corus we’ll pick up some more salt pork.” Daine did not eat game, limiting herself to fish and domesticated animals, which she could block from her mind.

Alanna scowled. “I’d rather not stop,” she said.

“We’re not going to the castle,” Jack agreed, accepting Daine’s knife and starting to skin one of the rabbits while Kitten watched curiously. Poor Daine turned a little green and looked away. “Sorry,” Jack added when he saw her reaction. Numair tucked an arm around her and she made a face at him.

“It’s alright,” Daine told him, resting her cheek on Numair’s shoulder. She was warm at his side and immensely comforting. “You can’t help what you are.”

“Which is a carnivore,” Jack agreed brightly, but Numair saw through it. Daine did too, from the way she shifted against Numair’s side.

Jack had a darkness about him, and he hid it behind a great, shining grin. Numair did not know the exact circumstance, but he knew that the death of the man’s lover had been traumatic. There was also something strange about Jack’s interactions with Kitten, and his reaction to the deaths of the Nepthalae had been telling. Where he, Daine and Alanna had been nearly frozen with horror at the genocide, Jack had reacted with resignation, as though such massive amounts of death were commonplace.

It was that reaction that made Numair put away his eyebright at last and allow Jack his small lies. The spell on his coat held anyway, though now that Jack was aware of it, it wouldn’t do much. Jack was faking cheer, and Numair wasn’t going to call him out. They all needed a little cheer, really. Numair even played along.

“Omnivore, actually,” he corrected mildly, and Jack rolled his eyes, all light mockery.

“Omnivores by their nature can choose. I’m choosing carnivore at the moment,” Jack said with a playful spark in his eye.

“Scientists,” Alanna scoffed, and reached to skin the other rabbit. “Isn’t it all the same?”

“Pigeon holes and labels,” Jack agreed with another of his bright smiles. “I don’t really like them.”

“Necessary for classification,” Numair said.

Jack snorted and muttered something indistinct.

“We ought to stop in Corus,” Numair told Alanna after a moment’s silence. “The king should be informed about the Nepthalae.”

“I suppose,” Alanna said, “But I’d rather not. We can send Jon a message by bird. I’m still annoyed with _His Majesty_ , so I think it’d be best for me to stay away, especially after something like—this. I’m probably going to get angry with him over something personal, and the Nepthalae deserve better than that. We can give him a full report after we take care of these weevils.”

Numair looked down regretfully at the mention of the Nepthalae, but Jack broke the silence before any of them could become too maudlin.

“King’s Champion,” he pointed out, gesturing with Daine’s knife. A drip of rabbit’s blood flung into the space they were going to dig for the fire pit. He frowned and wiped off the rest of the blade.

Numair felt Daine cringe against him and squeezed her. She knocked her shoulder against his side, a little chiding.

“That doesn’t mean I have to like him all the time,” Alanna muttered.

“Jack’s nervous because he’s afraid that Jon’ll react badly to his—condition,” Daine told Alanna, glancing at Jack, who was immortal through some sort of accident. Numair did not know the details—Jack kept such secrets—but he did know that it had something to do with a girl called Rose Tyler and a goddess called Bad Wolf.

Jack grimaced. Daine was eerily perceptive, sometimes, Numair thought with a wry little smile. It was one of the reasons he loved her. “It isn’t only that,” Jack muttered.

Alanna raised an eyebrow. “He won’t care that you can’t die, if that’s what you mean.”

“The last government that I had to deal with had me killed—unpleasantly,” Jack said, “And then—” he stopped, scowling. “It wasn’t pretty.”

“Well, you won’t have to worry about that,” Daine said. “We’d speak for you. And His Majesty doesn’t really do public executions anyway, especially if they won’t work.” She wriggled, and Numair removed his arm from her shoulder, letting her stand.

Jack seemed grateful for the comfort, although reluctant to admit it. “Thanks,” he muttered awkwardly, hugging Daine back when she came over to sling an affectionate arm around his shoulder. He shot an uneasy glance to Numair. Numair approved; when he had first met Jack, he’d feared that the man would try to steal Daine away. It was completely ridiculous, and he’d made a complete fool of himself trying to ward him off.

Jack had laughed at him, in fact.

But when he’d learned about Ianto Jones, Jack’s deceased lover, he’d become a little less worried. Jack was a flirt, it was true, but seemed to be with everyone, regardless of gender, and without any real intent. Numair wasn’t sure how he felt, other than exhausted from worrying about it, so he let it drop. He trusted Daine, anyway.

“Who’s starting the fire?” Jack asked

Numair shrugged and gestured; a clump of earth removed itself from the center of their circle. He winced.

“That was unwise,” Alanna said. Numair rubbed his temple, a headache starting to set in. Daine left Jack’s side and grasped Numair’s arm, looking worried and sympathetic. He gave her a smile.

“You should save it,” she said, cupping his cheek. Her hand was quite warm and Numair leaned into it, enjoying it. “We can dig out a fire pit by hand, dolt.”

Jack frowned. “ _Still_ weak?” he asked.

“It was a big spell,” Daine said defensively, rubbing Numair’s arm and taking her hand from his cheek so she could turn to look at Jack. “And he was already tired.”

“I’m not that delicate,” Numair protested, but Daine pinched him a little and he wrinkled his nose at her. She was being ridiculous and fussy, Numair thought, ignoring the funny wriggly feeling that uncurled in his stomach at Daine’s concern. She sat next to him again, warming his side.

Jack glared. “You’re not powering this thing until you’re back to full strength,” he said firmly, waving the receptacle. Numair opened his mouth to protest again, but Jack interrupted.

“It isn’t safe. I don’t know how much power it’ll need, and I’ll not have you hurting on my account, not again.”

Numair scowled, but said nothing.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Alanna said.

“That goes for you, too,” Jack shot to the Lioness, by now fully aware that she was a powerful mage as well. Amused, Numair quirked a smile when Alanna made a face at him.

“I had no intention of powering that thing unless you absolutely needed it,” Alanna told Jack loftily. “I prefer to save my strength.” She patted the sword at her hip.

“Good.” Jack rose to pull apart the firewood that Daine had brought, carefully arranging it in the middle of the pit.

“But if you gave me one of _your_ weapons—” Alanna started, but she quieted with a chuckle when Jack shot her a look over his shoulder.

“I don’t think so,” he replied wryly.

“Anachronisms, Alanna,” Numair told her lightly, using one of Jack’s terms. Really, the amount that he had learned from their enigmatic friend was rather astounding. Jack rolled his eyes at the teasing and started to put logs in the fire pit.           

Kitten jogged over and cheeped; Jack scuttled backwards in surprise as flames roared. The dragon chirped proudly at him. Jack glared.

“You must be tired as well,” he said, but Kitten shrugged with her wings and trotted back to Daine. “Honestly, the lot of you,” Jack complained, returning to his spot next to Numair.

Daine rolled her eyes. She reached out and scooped Kitten up into her arms. “Welcome to my life,” she said dryly.

“You’re just as bad,” Numair said. Daine grinned unrepentantly. Numair sighed, amused despite himself.

There was a moment of silence as they stared at the slowly growing fire.

“I suppose I can send a messenger pigeon to George,” Alanna finally said. “If we’re going to Corus. He has work to do there, but I think he was planning to ride out to Galla to talk to one of his contacts. Another pair of eyes can’t hurt, anyway, especially after we’re all so tired. He can bring in some more supplies, so we don’t have to stop tomorrow.”

“That sounds like a compromise,” Daine said. She looked up to summon a bird. Numair followed her eyes, but for the moment, the sky was empty. He could hear wings at a distance.

Jack scowled. “The less people involved in this the better,” he said. “I don’t want your gods angry with all of you.”

“The badger understood,” Daine said, still looking up. There was a mourning dove in the air, spiraling down to meet her upstretched hand.  “And you _were_ holding up your end of the bargain; you were trying to get rid of the--the Nepthalae. We were just hoping to do it without the bloodshed.” The dove landed on her palm.

Numair examined it. Daine’s abilities never got old, and there was always a bit of childlike delight when a wild animal came close. Mourning doves were beautiful, really. 

 Daine wasn’t looking at the dove. “Alanna?”

“Right,” Alanna said. She stood up and then rummaged around her saddle bag, slung over a rock for the evening. Their horses were farther off, grazing. Daine’s magic made tethers rather unnecessary.

Alanna pulled out a sheet of parchment and a quill, but seemed unable to find any ink. She scowled, digging around, but Numair reached over pulled some ink out of his own bag.

“Here,” he offered. Alanna nodded and wrote her missive. She gave it to the bird, who flew off with a quiet croon to Daine.

“Hopefully he’ll meet us on the road in a day or so,” Alanna said. “I told him to report to Jon, so we shouldn’t need to stop.”

“More people,” Jack muttered, clearly unhappy.

“It’ll be alright, Jack,” Daine said, but Jack gave her a look so doubtful that Numair felt a tremor of fear slide down his spine.


	3. Chapter 2

_Jack! Jack Harkness! I’m looking for—_

Ianto?

_Jack! Jack, are you there?_

_Jack?_

_It’s just darkness from here. Owen and Susie were right; it’s only darkness. There must be a better way to do this…_

\---

“Owen!” Jack called as soon as he realized where he was standing. Torchwood Three, stationed under the monolith of the Millennium Center in Cardiff, had reconstructed itself in his dreams. He remembered falling asleep under a tree in Tortall; now, in his dream, it was night and the stars were out, washed away by the lights from the city. He looked left and right but Owen, who usually came to talk to him when he dreamed, was nowhere to be found. “Owen! Where the hell are you? Harper!”

“Right! Sorry!” Owen Harper materialized in front of Jack, looking startled. “You fell asleep faster than I expected,” he said. He strode across the empty Plass, lit by eerie, orange sodium lamps. His shadow stretched darkly behind him, and Jack was struck by the silence of the streets, which made Owen’s loud footsteps slightly jarring in the night.

“What can you tell me about the situation with the Great Gods?” Jack asked. He walked over to meet Owen, who grimaced. The orange light of the lamps casted his pale face in harsh relief.

“Yes, I’m fine thank you, how are you doing, Jack?”

Jack glared.

“They’re all fighting,” Owen said, more seriously. “My mate Gainel’s on your side. So are Daine’s parents, though that’s more for her sake than yours. The Graveyard Hag is beyond pissed, but she’s pretty minor, and they’re not listening to her, especially after the stunt she pulled.” He nodded to Jack, who did not let himself drop his eyes. “Mithros, of course, is fuming, Alanna’s Goddess has yet to grace us with her opinion, and Mynoss is playing with his scales – he’s some kind of judgment god.”

Jack frowned, going through the list of what he knew of the major gods here. “And the Black God?” That was the only other he could think of, although he was sure there were more. He’d liked the Black God, who he’d met in his bedroom at Pirate’s Swoop. He had seemed terribly kind.  

Owen shrugged. “He doesn’t really care either way.”

“So it’s just Mithros and the Graveyard Hag,” Jack said. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

“That’s the thing about a pantheon,” Owen said. “They fight amongst themselves. Still, a whole bunch of them have yet to choose sides and those two are a bit of a force, so you ought to be careful.”

Owen looked around, his eyes falling on the smooth concrete and the massive, black monolith that used to mark an entrance to Torchwood Three. “It stayed together?” he asked the general air.

“Looks that way,” Jack said. He glanced back at the sidewalk, unable to stop a small, fond smile from stretching his lips. He’d spent so long in this place, and it was good to see it in one piece again, even if it was just in his dreams. “Think we can go inside?”

“It’s your dream,” Owen said, dry as dust. Jack rolled his eyes.

“Right.” He tilted his head and they both went to stand on a certain stone that stood beneath the monolith. Jack ground his heel into the cement, and there was a low groan of working gears. Slowly, ponderously, the stone lowered into the ground. Jack beamed at Owen.

“Don’t look so pleased,” Owen said, although he was unable to hide the light in his eyes. “It’s just a figment of your imagination.”

“Yeah, but it’s a damn good one,” Jack said. He couldn’t stop the brilliant grin as they descended.

The Hub was just as Jack remembered it, naturally, but it was devoid of the life that the Torchwood team had brought to it. The stone dropped into the cavernous space beneath the concrete, and the lights flickered on. But the computers were off, and there was none of the buzzing hum that had always seemed to go with the place. Jack looked sadly towards the archives, thinking of Ianto and the bargain he refused.

“Don’t tell me you’re still mooning,” Owen said, eyes on the dark computer screens of Tosh’s old workstation.

“Jealous?” Jack asked. His heart wasn’t really in the joke.

“You wish,” Owen said. The stone touched the ground and they stepped off in silence.

“Just—” Owen added after a quiet moment, “Don’t do anything stupid, Jack. These gods can hardly hurt _you_ , but there’s something funny with this whole planet. I’m starting to get the feeling that this barrier thing is life or death.” His voice echoed oddly in the silent Hub.

“I’m getting that impression, too,” Jack said. He walked over to Tosh’s old desk, empty of course, and touched one of four computer monitors. The screens were all black. Owen looked at the chair, melancholy.

“You think it’s all darkness?” he asked, voice small.

“For Tosh? I wish it were something else,” Jack sighed. Tosh has loved Owen, once upon a time, but Owen had not acknowledged her until it was too late.

Owen swallowed. “Me too.”

\---

_Light._

_Wait. Hold on. Light? Where did—_

“Who’re you supposed to be?”

Ianto Jones, deceased, blinked in the light.

“This really has to stop,” he said dryly to no one in particular.

“That can be arranged,” growled the other voice, and Ianto squinted.

“I’m dead,” he said.

“Join the club,” the other voice replied. Ianto scowled.

“I’m _dead_ ,” Ianto repeated, because it bore repeating, “and the light is hurting my eyes. How does that make sense?” He put a hand over his eyes, thumb next to his temple and palm facing down, in hopes of shading out at least some of the light. It stayed constant, a bright blur in his vision, like a spotlight in a dark auditorium.

Minus the auditorium, of course, and plus more darkness. Oh, bloody hell.

“Oh, you’re one of _those_ , are you?” the other voice said. “Always making _sense_ of things.”

“Would you rather I made things otherwise?” Ianto shot back and the other voice chuckled.

“That’s more like it,” it said.

Ianto rolled his eyes and asked, “Who are you?” _What_ was probably a more apt question, he realized belatedly.

“I could ask the same of you, pretty boy,” the voice replied.

“I asked you first.”

Silence.

This was an exercise in futility, Ianto thought with frustration. “Ianto Jones,” he said. Hopefully that would get whoever this was moving forward—or also damn his soul for eternity. He’d been at Torchwood long enough to know that the terrible option was always on the table. Still, anything was better than the nothing. At least he’d have something to think about. “And you are…?”

Something silver and glinting waddled gracelessly into the light and Ianto Jones, the ever-composed veteran Torchwood Operative, gaped.

“Rikash Moonsword,” said the creature with wings of steel and a fierce grin. “I think we can help each other, Ianto Jones.”


	4. Chapter 3

 “What the _hell_ are those?” Jack muttered. There were glinting lights in the pre-dawn sky, and the people here certainly didn’t have the technology for machines that flew. A breath of foul air had woken him from a rather pleasant, if a little boring, dream about Torchwood Three.

Another waft of the small hit his nose. He wrinkled it.

on the other side of the burned-out fire, Daine stirred. It took her a moment, but eventually she peeked out of her bedroll. Jack felt a a whisper of regret for waking her.

She sniffed at the air, shifted her weight. “Stormwings,” she sighed and sat up a little, following where Jack pointed. “They must’ve found the Nepthalae.” She shifted the blankets. 

Beside her, Jack heard Numair groan, and the slide of the blankets as he burrowed.

He turned from the glinting, ominous lights in the sky and looked at his friends. Daine was waiting for him, and she met his eyes steadily. God, but she had an intense stare, Jack thought. Like an eagle, or a lion. Of all of them, Daine was the real force to be reckoned with.

But she wasn’t angry at Jack, not anymore. Her face was sad and resigned as she watched him, deeply sympathetic. It made Jack want to hide. 

 Numair gave a another discontent, sleepy sound as he woke and Daine looked away. Jack let out a small huff of breath, a little winded. He watched Numair peek out from under the blankets, and saw how Daine smiled at him.  Barely awake, Numair was all dark eyes and tousled hair, and he gazed Daine with solemn sleepiness.

Kitten, who had curled up at Jack’s feet for some reason, sat up and cheeped. Her scales turned a deep blue and she wrinkled her nose unhappily, muttering.

“Storm-what?” Jack asked. Numair rustled and shook himself more fully awake. Daine stilled him with a hand on his shoulder, and turned back to Jack.

“They’re a kind of Immortal,” she explained. “They feed off death and battles, sort of like vultures. The—the Nepthalae ship…” Her voice trailed.

Jack swallowed, understanding her meaning, and looked back up. Lights glinted in the distance. “And they smell really foul,” he deduced quietly. “And—some kind of reflective surface?”

“They look like the spawn of a person and a great, big metal bird,” Alanna said. She was sitting up as well, red hair tousled around her head. She must not have been asleep at last glance after all. “They have feathers made of steel and a very nasty attitude,” she added, and glanced sharply at Daine. If Daine wanted to go fight off these things, it seemed that Alanna was game. Jack felt hesitant—if they were the natural order of this planet, then he knew they were best off not bothering, but the guilt that sat heavy on his shoulders wanted him to do something.

“They won’t harm us here,” Daine said, full of regret. “There’s nothing we can do for the Nepthalae; we buried what we could. The ship’s half a day’s ride off.” She laid herself back down next to Numair. “We’re just unlucky enough that there’s a strong breeze, and we’re downwind. We’ll rise when the sun’s up for real. Go back to sleep, Jack.”

Jack frowned, not satisfied. He glanced down at Kitten, who curled up once again at his feet. The little dragon kept on glancing at him, as though to make sure that he was okay. Jack spared her a strained smile and bunched his coat, which served as his pillow.

They smell godawful, he thought unhappily, bedding down and turning his head to stare at the glinting things in the sky. He wondered why they were attracted to the dead aliens, and thought morbidly about vultures. There really was nothing they could do: the ship was quite far, when the only mode of transportation was by horse. He sighed.

The dawn was false; the sky was softly lightening to blue, almost purple. It would be an hour or so until the sun really rose. The distant Stormwings were reflecting light off their metal wings, twinkling like stars.

There must be some sort of draft, Jack thought, burying his nose in his blankets. Their stench had been bad enough to wake him, even at this distance.

He squeezed his eyes shut and layered his blanket. That helped a bit, he thought, resigning himself to wakefulness for the next few hours.

\---

“Moonsword. Right. Pardon the question, but what exactly _are_ you?” Ianto stared at the creature. He wrinkled his nose at the godawful smell.

Ianto had smelled many terrible things in his life – chasing weevils down in the sewers and cleaning up after Torchwood Three came with some distinctive odors – but this was a whole new class of horrid. It was dead things, excrement, and decay, and so strong that it took physical effort not to gag, which was odd, considering that he was dead.

The creature’s steel wings rattled and Ianto glanced at them through eyes watering from the smell. The metal limbs and the noises they made brought Torchwood One to mind, and the death and horror that had haunted Ianto’s dreams in life, but the Cybermen that had invaded Canary Warf never had wings. If they did, they would look like this, though.

But you couldn’t have a Cyberman in the dead space, he told himself firmly. That didn’t even make sense. The whole point of Cybermen was for a kind of immortality, so it had to be something else. Besides, the thing had spoken with actual words. Cybermen generally didn’t have the predisposition to say anything more complicated than “You will be upgraded.”

“Surely you’ve heard of Stormwings?” Moonsword asked, breaking Ianto’s train of thought. At Ianto’s raised eyebrows he ruffled feathers that clinked and clanked and made Ianto shift his nonexistent weight. “Really? That’s disappointing. What are you doing here, anyway?”  

“I’m looking for a man called Jack Harkness,” Ianto said. Who knew – Susie had once said that, beyond death, there was something moving in the darkness, and it wanted Jack. Maybe someone here would know of him. Maybe whatever it was would eat Ianto: who knew, but it was better than wandering alone in the dark. “I know he’s in some sort of trouble—he’s always in some sort of trouble—but someone said his name, this old woman—”

“Humans,” Moonsword scoffed, tossing his head so the bones braided in his filthy blond hair clicked together, “honestly. I take it your Jack Harkness is still alive?”

“He’s always alive,” Ianto muttered, not really wanting to get into it.

The metal bird with a human head looked at him oddly, but all he said was, “I figured it was something like that. You’re well beyond the Realms of the Dead, Ianto Jones.” The steel feathers moved as the creature shifted his weight, and they whispered against each other like a sword in a scabbard.

“There’s realms?” Ianto said, “I wouldn’t exactly call this a realm.”

“Don’t let your Black God catch you saying that, mortal.” He grinned, showing off pointed silver teeth.

Ianto, who had been the clean-up man of Torchwood Three, and therefore had seen much more alarming teeth in his lifetime, narrowed his eyes, confused and not liking it. What did he mean by that? Who was the Black God? The thing that wanted Jack? That certainly didn’t sound good.  He didn’t say anything.

Moonsword cocked his head. Whatever he saw on Ianto’s face apparently gave him pause. The bones braided in his matted blond hair clicked again. “You’re—” he started, frowning, and then stopped. “You’re not from my world,” he finished after a moment.

“I should think that’s rather obvious,” Ianto replied dryly.

The creature huffed. “So,” he said, “Where you’re from—there’s no realms?”

“Just this,” Ianto said, “If this is what you call a realm.”

“No,” Moonsword said. He sidled anxiously on his metal raptor’s feet, “it isn’t.” He gestured with one steel-feathered wing. “My world has no place for dead Immortals.”

Ianto’s hopes leaped for a moment. “I thought an immortal could not die,” he said. "It's, you know. The name."

“We’re only called Immortals.” Moonsword said. “Clearly, we can die.”

Ianto swallowed his disappointment. “I see,” he said. That had been a rather stupid question anyway, given the context. “And how do you think we can help each other, Mr. Moonsword?”

The metal thing flinched. “Sun and shield, call me Rikash! My ancestors were a sentimental flock of pigeons; let’s not encourage it.”

“Rikash, then,” Ianto said, amused despite himself.

“I was under the impression that you were looking for the Realms of the Dead, because I would like to gain access as well. This is—” he gestured with a steel wing to encompass the general area, apparently without words to describe it.

Ianto had the words. “Rather awful?” 

“Rather,” Rikash agreed. Ianto could hear true fear behind it. He looked at the edges of the light.

“Are you producing this?” Ianto asked. He gestured to the little glowing globe.

“The light? Of course,” Rikash said. “Wouldn’t you, if you could?”

Ianto smiled, but it was not a particularly nice smile. “I think we _can_ help each other, Rikash Moonsword.”


	5. Chapter 4

“George says he’ll meet us somewhere on the road beyond Corus,” Alanna said. Jack watched her re-spool a scroll with a practiced hand.  “He says that he’s going to the border, but he can travel with us for a few days, as it’s on the way.”

The messenger pigeon, preening Daine’s hair, cooed as if in agreement.

Jack looked up at the great castle walls rising in the distance, relieved. “So we’re not stopping,” he said.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Daine and Numair share a look. God knew what they were conferring about, Jack thought, shooting for sour but falling short.

“No,” Numair said. “I suppose not.”

Red, who had been standing calmly beneath Jack, tossed his head with an uneasy snort. Jack glanced down at his mount. He patted his soft gray neck.

“He’s fine,” Daine said. “But you’re sitting all stiff—you’re making him nervous. We’re not stopping so there’s no reason to worry, dolt.” She turned Cloud with a light touch of her reins. “Let’s keep going.”

“Sorry,” Jack muttered down to his horse. He forced the set of his shoulders to relax and tugged gently on Red’s mane. Red glanced back at him, curving his great neck down so his nose approached Jack’s foot. One dark eye peered at him reproachfully. Jack couldn’t stop the little smile that curled his lips. He patted Red again.

The castle loomed as they approached to the city. It took two days to get close enough to see it in any real detail, but it was striking even from the distance. On the second day, Jack could see that the thing was all towers and flying buttresses. It was very impressive, especially for a society that didn’t really know the science of tall buildings.

As they got closer, other travelers started to appear on the road too, and it widened.  But the other travelers behaved strangely. In the old days of Earth, back when there were people wandering on long empty roads, travelers would nod or even speak to each other as they passed. Here that did not seem to be the case: in fact, they often hurried on. Several curious eyes fell on Jack, but they always looked away when he smiled.

“Tough crowd,” Jack murmured when a man sitting on a wagon bade his horse to trot as they drew near. Jack watched him pass, and noticed that he urged his horse faster when he realized Jack was looking at him. The wagon wheels kicked up dust in his wake.

“You’re traveling with two of the strongest mages in the realm,” Alanna said. “That’s bound to make people nervous.”

“And the estranged King’s Champion,” Numair added. “We are all fairly well known in Corus, unfortunately. Together or apart, we get funny looks. I’m sure there’ll be gossip about you in the palace, Jack, now that you’ve been seen with us.”

Jack hadn’t thought of that. “Great,” he said.

“You get used to it,” Daine said dryly.

They rode in silence after that, and Jack watched the castle grow closer and closer. The government that it represented made him nervous. Daine, Numair and Alanna were loyal to their king, that was obvious, but if Jack had learned anything, it was that kings and warlords and prime ministers and presidents were fickle. His three friends would turn on him if their king bade them, and that was not something he wanted to contemplate.

Jack shifted on Red’s back. The dappled gelding shot him a glance over his shoulder, and Jack patted his neck again. He’d gotten too close to these three over just a few weeks. It had been so quick, but there was a lot to like about them – Daine’s kindness, Numair’s curiosity, Alanna’s fierceness, even Kitten, the little dragon asleep in Daine’s saddlebag – and after however-long-it-had-been, the camaraderie had been welcome. He ran three fingers through Red’s black-and-white mane.

I like it here, Jack thought. I could learn to love this place, if the king turns out to be what the others say he is.  

It was unlikely. Even fair rulers were dangerous, and kings were rarely fair. 

Liking this place was a mistake. The gods here were cruel, and a hundred people had already died from Jack’s negligence. How would it feel, Jack thought bitterly, in a hundred years? Another place he had grown fond of, people he loved – because he could love these people – all dead, and Jack still around? His hand fisted in Red’s mane. How—

“Well, that was sooner than I thought!” Alanna exclaimed, breaking Jack out of his dark spiral. She urged Darkmoon to a canter. Jack blinked, turning in confusion to Daine and Numair, who had held their horses back.

“The chestnut,” Daine told Jack, gesturing. Jack followed her hand.

Darkmoon’s black tail streamed proudly behind him. He headed toward a chestnut that looked, if it had been from Earth, as if might have had Arabian blood in it. The man had pulled his horse to a stop. From this distance Jack could see that he was broad shouldered, his hair a light, dusty brown.

Darkmoon pitched to a halt and Alanna punched the fellow’s shoulder from horseback in an affectionate sort of way. His responding grin was wide enough to sparkle in the afternoon light. He caught her hand and kissed it.

“Come on,” Daine said, and urged Cloud to a trot. Numair and Jack followed.

“Daine Sarrasri!” the man cried when they got close enough for speech. “Mithros bless, you get more beautiful every day.” His voice was a pleasant tenor and slightly lilting.

“Good to see you, too, George,” Numair said, but his dark eyes glittered. Jack sat back on Red and watched, intrigued.

“And you, Numair.” Baron George Cooper of Pirate’s Swoop took Daine’s hand warmly and then brought his horse close enough to give Numair a friendly slap on the back. He turned to Jack. “And you’re the mysterious Jack Harkness,” he added, hazel eyes bright and curious and far slyer than Jack was expecting.

Jack’s eyebrows rose. “Alanna wrote about me?” He glanced back at her and the Lioness smirked, eyes sliding, both proud and exasperated, to George.

“Nah,” George replied. “I just know these things.”

Jack liked him immediately. “You do, do you?” he shot back, grasping the offered hand. George’s grip was strong and his palm callused. He met Jack’s eye, twinkling like a goddamned quasar, and oh hell was Jack in trouble.

“Are you flirting with my husband?” Alanna said incredulously, and Jack gave her a dazzling smile.

“I could flirt with you too, if you like.”  He cocked his head at her and lowered his eyelids, all charm. Daine had shot him down, that day, so he hadn’t played with Alanna, too worried and depressed to even bother. But now—Alanna was fascinating and clever and gorgeous, as all his Tortallan friends were. To insinuate his way into Daine and Numair’s bed would be to divide them, and Jack couldn’t bear to hurt them like that. Alanna, though—

George roared with laughter and urged his horse back. “Hands off; I fought long and hard for my Lioness,” he said, but the playful grin on his face softened his words.

Totallans and their small minds! Honestly, monogamy was the worst. Everything got so much better when humanity as a whole did away with it, Jack thought.

“Never said I’d come between you,” Jack assured him, solemn. “Unless you wanted me to, of course.”

“Jack!” his three friends yelped in chorus, shocked, and George laughed again, loud and bawdy.

“You’re _certainly_ not from ‘round here,” he hooted. He recovered after a moment, but started chuckling again at his wife’s bright red face. Even Jack felt his lips curling in a reluctant smile.

“This is going to be unbearable,” Alanna groaned, urging Darkmoon to walk. “And not a word out of you, Jack Harkness.”

Jack smiled at her again, turning up the charm just a little too high, and George snickered. They fell into a short silence, marked by the clip-clop of the horses’ hooves.

“Th’ gossip says you’re from somewhere distant,” George told Jack after a moment. “And there was some nasty business with a bunch of creatures that weren’t Immortals?” He urged his chestnut closer to Red. Those hazel eyes were bright and curious.

Jack’s good mood dissipated. He looked away. “You won’t have to worry about it,” he said. “Your gods took care of them just fine.”

George’s eyebrows rose.

“They died.” Daine had come up on George’s other side. “They had a boat made to travel between worlds—Numair can tell you more about it—but it was damaged in some kind of war. Jack wanted to fix it and send them away, but the gods destroyed it before he got the chance.”

“How many?” George asked.

“Hundred, hundred fifty,” Alanna replied.

George whistled through his teeth. “Why?”

“Something to do with a queen called Uusoae,” Jack said. He stared down at Red’s dark mane. “Apparently anyone from off-planet strengthens her foothold.” He did not care that George would likely not understand the reference, and he was surprised when the man did.

“What of you, then, lad? My sources tell me you’re from beyond the stars.” George’s eyes were sharp when Jack glanced up at him in surprise.

He laughed darkly. “I’m no lad, Baron. And apparently since I’ve made a bargain, I’m safe. Mostly.” There was no reason to get into Bad Wolf, Jack thought grimly. None at all. Besides, Alanna with probably tell George soon enough.

George rubbed his chin. “You’ll want to watch those bargains,” was all he said.

“Yeah, I’ve figured that out by now.” Jack’s black mood returned with a vengeance. Red sighed a little, sensing Jack’s tense body, and he wound his fingers apologetically through the horse’s dark mane.

There was a silence, which George broke. “Let’s get a bit of a jog going,” he said. “I need the stretch. Once we’re clear of Corus, we can set down camp. I’ve a few messages I’d like to send to Myles, Daine, if you can ask some of your friends for the help.”

Alanna nudged Darkmoon to trot and they followed. George urged his chestnut into a fast canter, forcing them all to run to keep up. Jack gasped, startled and grateful as Red leaped forward.

The wind whipped past them. He could feel Red’s muscles as his horse careened after the others and all Jack could think about was the blessed rush of adrenalin, holding himself on Red’s back as they raced down the road. It was as if there was nothing else—nothing but the wind and the road and the sound of the horses’ hooves as they struck the ground. Jack lost himself in it, grateful that he could pretend that that was all there was, just for a while.

 


	6. Chapter 5

“I’m telling you,” Rikash snapped as he waddled alongside Ianto, “There’s nowhere to go. It’s all like this. The only reason we’re even sort of corporal is because of my spell.”

Ianto glanced at the Stormwimg, who looked rather like a penguin tottering back and forth. It was quite undignified; he was sure such a creature was made more for the air than for the ground. “Spells,” Ianto scoffed into the darkness, squinting as the small globe of light following Rikash dipped up and down.

“Oh, that’s right,” the Stormwing continued, “You come from a world with aliens instead of magic. How awful for you. How is this helping, again?”

“I want to gain access to the world of the living,” Ianto said for the fifth time, “and so do you, am I right?”

“Well, I can’t very well tear apart the world of the dead,” Rikash snapped. “If you can even call this a world.” His eyes darted uneasily to the darkness that yawned beyond the bobbing light globe.

“And I wouldn’t,” Ianto agreed. “Therefore, we need to find—something. Anything that can help. There must be _something_.”

“There isn’t,” the Stormwing said. “I keep trying to tell you, and you keep not listening. There’s nothing. That’s what it’s like between realms. Nothing. Not a single thing.”

“I refuse to just _stand_ here,” Ianto said.

“So we walk to nowhere,” Rikash muttered. God but he was a pain in the arse, Ianto thought. If the darkness weren’t completely terrifying, he would have ditched the giant, stinking bird ages ago. 

He stole a glance at Rikash. He knew he was lying to himself; the Stormwing might prove useful, and even if he didn’t, it was not in Ianto’s nature to abandon someone who needed help.

“Can’t you fly?” Ianto asked. “Better to fly nowhere than to walk nowhere. More stimulating, I should think.”

“And leave you behind? Because that’s starting to look tempting,” the Stormwing snapped. He didn’t mean it any more than Ianto did; that much was obvious. Ianto glanced over, and he saw the same fear reflected at him in Rikash’s green eyes. It was better to be with someone, anyone, than it was to face the darkness alone.

“I can hold onto your feet,” Ianto said. They both stopped and looked dubiously at the Stormwing’s vicious claws.

“I’d slice you to ribbons,” Rikash said. He flexed his right foot, causing the raptor’s talons to gleam in his globe-light, then shook his head without saying anything, clearly unwilling to harm Ianto. Ianto was strangely touched, even though it was irrelevant.

“I’m dead,” he said dryly. “I haven’t got a body, never mind your spell, or whatever it is. It’s not like you’re going to kill me.”

Rikash dug his claws into the nonexistent ground. “I suppose,” he muttered, sounding unconvinced.

“Can you create things?” Ianto asked. “Like a rope or something? A swing, or a hammock.”

The Stormwing unfolded both of his steel wings, gesturing to the darkness. “Nothing,” he said very slowly, as if Ianto were dim.

Ianto scowled. Though his wingspan was impressive, all that extra unfolding released extra stink, which was just unfair. Dead people should not have to smell bad smells. Not only did it make no sense, it was bloody disgusting. 

“Yes, I got that, thanks,” he muttered, but then frowned, smoothing his hand over the tie around his neck and the gray vest he’d worn the day the Four-Five-Six had killed him. “But somehow I’m wearing clothes,” he said.

“Would you rather you weren’t?” Rikash asked sweetly, tucking his wings away. Ianto ignored him.

“I’m wearing the clothing I was when I died. Why?” Ianto paced for a moment. He stopped. “And you have bones in your hair,” he accused. Rikash raised an eyebrow. “Did you wear those, in life?”

“Yes,” the Stormwing replied, shifting his weight uneasily and clearly perplexed as to where Ianto was going with this. “But what does that have to do with—”

“Because it means that we _have possessions,_ ” Ianto said.  Rikash blinked. He clearly hadn’t thought of that. “We’re wearing what we were wearing when we died. Why?”

There was a silence.

“Because we think we should be?” Ianto hypothesized after a moment.

“So,” the Stormwing continued that train of thought, “If you, say, reach into one of your pockets…” his voice trailed.

“…and expect to find a rope,” Ianto finished, reaching into his trouser pocket. He grinned triumphantly and pulled; a long orange bungee cable, coiled tightly, emerged. “I’ll find a rope,” he said delightedly, “because technically, none of this is real. It’s like a dream. Can I make light, too?” He looked beyond Rikash and _expected_ it to be light.

Light bloomed around the edges of the Stormwing’s spell, and Ianto beamed at him. “Think I could grow wings?” he asked eagerly.

“Don’t risk it,” Rikash warned. “There’s a law, back where I’m from: if you change into an Immortal, you get stuck in that form. Your Jack Harkness would hardly be pleased to find his pretty lover boy with steel wings, would he?”

Ianto knew for a fact that Jack would not give a single damn. Of course, whether or not he was happy to see Ianto at all was up in the air. But he’d said he missed him back in that meadow, and that old god had wanted to use him as a bargaining chip. That was enough to go on, for now.

“He wouldn’t care,” Ianto replied, not really wanting to think about it. God knew with Jack. But he still felt pleased enough with his discovery to be magnanimous. “But thanks for the warning. Can you hold onto this?” He waved the bungee cord.

In reply, Rikash fanned his wings and jumped a little. He flew, but not far, as if he was afraid he’d lose Ianto in the darkness surrounding his spell. Ianto shared that fear: he saw that his light, like Rikash’s, only extended in a small circle, and if he was separated from his companion, he doubted that they could find each other again.

The Stormwing, hovering, offered a steel talon, and Ianto handed him one of the metal hooks on the end of his bungee cord. Carefully, he tied a figure eight knot in the middle of the wide cable, before handing Rikash the other hook. Then he sat on the knot like the seat of a swing. “Am I too heavy?” he asked.

“No,” Rikash said. “You haven’t any weight at all.”

“That’s depressing,” Ianto said.

“It is, rather,” the Stormwing replied and they flew off into the darkness.

\---

Cloud broke her gallop, gasping, and Daine called the others to slow.

I’m not as young as I once was, Cloud panted.

That’s alright, she assured her. “They’re getting tired,” Daine told the others. “Best to save it in case we really do need to run.”

“Good idea,” Alanna said. She reined in Darkmoon. The warhorse chomped at his bit, flecks of foam around his mouth. Daine could hear him protesting, wanting to run more. “What was that all about, George?”

George was eyeing Jack, who was looking down at his mount’s neck, breathing heavily in a way the spoke of more than just exertion. “I dunno,” George replied. “I think Dove here wanted to stretch her legs, and I’ve been cooped up too long. S’been a while since I’ve done that.”

The run _was_ nice, Dove told Daine.

“It’s been—a while—for all of us,” Numair gasped, leaning on Spots’ neck. He looked exhausted—alarmingly so. Daine nudged Cloud to Spots’ side.

“Are you alright?” she asked, a little worried. Numair was better since the Nepthalae, but still not at full strength. He smiled at her.

“I’m fine,” he said, but his face was still gray. From the corner of her eye, Daine saw George look from Numair to Alanna.

“You wizards do something foolish?” he demanded.

Daine reached out and touched Numair’s thigh in concern. He patted her hand before lifting it to his lips, ignoring George.

“Yes,” Alanna replied.

“Do I want to know?” Daine could heat the eyeroll in his tone. She stoked Numair’s cheek.

“Not really,” Jack put in darkly.

Numair turned her hand over to kiss her palm, before releasing her. She wasn’t sure if that was reassuring or distracting, but it was nice, anyway. She looked around.

George was still watching Jack with sharp eyes. There would be time to explain later, Daine thought. She’d ask Jack if she could tell George what happened. Maybe that would spare Jack from having to explain himself, when it seemed to cause him so much hurt.

Spots’ and Numair’s warmth at her side was a comfort, but it was time to continue on, if only to cool the horses. There was no need to prod at skittish Jack, not when they had a job to do. Daine urged Cloud to a walk and took the lead. 

“Come on,” she said. She couldn’t quite stop herself from checking on Numair again. He smiled at her softly. He was alright, she thought with some relief. “There are weevils in these woods, now that we’ve passed Corus. We should cool out the horses and then make camp. We’ll never find them if Numair and Alanna stay exhausted, and if Jack doesn’t fix up his thing.” She nodded to Jack’s saddlebag, where he was keeping the food storage thing, scavenged from the Nepthalae ship and then glanced back again to Numair.

Her mage was silent, slumping on Spots’ back, but when he felt her eyes on him once more he sat up and smiled at her. She was not convinced, although Daine felt her own lips curve into a responding smile. Even knowing that he was alright did not change her memories; she remembered him collapsing lifeless onto her shoulder, and the fierce, helpless love she’d felt as he exhausted himself. Daine shivered.

“You’re right,” Alanna agreed, bringing Daine back to the present.

There was a moment of silence, filled only with the shuffling of the horses’ hooved on the dirt road. “I did hear a rumor there were monsters headin’ toward the city,” George said at last.

“They would,” Jack replied. Daine’s eyes slid back to him; the man had a dark look on his face, lost somewhere in unhappy memories. “They like sewers and dead things eat, and the higher population of people would draw them in.” He glanced at George and added, “This is you just knowing things, again?”

George inclined his head with an unpleasant grin. “Yes, sir,” he said lightly. Jack winced unexpectedly, but said nothing. He tensed enough for Red to feel it, though.

Don’t call him that! the gelding said to George heatedly, as if George could understand him. That hurts him most of all!

Beneath Daine, Cloud gave an exasperated sigh. Daine blinked down at her. That was odd. 

“Has anyone been hurt?” Alanna was asking, eyes on George.

“One man gone missing,” George replied. Daine realized from his small nod that he had spotted Jack’s flinch, too. “But that could be spidrens. These beasties ain’t near any towns, that I know of, and I know of a few. Can you send spies, Daine?”

That hadn’t occurred to Daine. “Good idea,” she said and looked to the sky. Several forest sparrows piped up from several trees, and she called to them, asking questions.

Images played in her mind in response: human-sized creatures with small, beady eyes. We thought they were two-leggers, some of the birds told her uneasily. Two leggers with teeth.

“They’ve seen them,” Daine murmured. “That’s why they’re all here, not east. There’s better food to the east, but these weevils’ve scared them off.”

“Wise of them,” Jack said. “Weevils are nasty business. How far are we, do you think?”

“Two days, three,” Daine replied, doing some guesswork. “They say four days’ flight, but sparrows aren’t built for long distance.”

For some reason, that made Jack smile. “And swallows?” he asked.

Daine blinked at him. “That depends on whether they’re migrating or nesting,” she said.

Jack was starting to chuckle. “And if they’re carrying a coconut?” he asked.

“What? Swallows can’t carry coconuts, they’re too small.”

Jack was laughing quietly now, real laughter. “An African swallow could,” he said, eyes twinkling.  

Daine had never heard of an African swallow. She had a feeling she was being teased. It was sweet-natured, though, and she knew Jack meant no harm, so she was more puzzled than offended. Coconuts? “Sometimes,” she said, “You’re fair weird.”

Jack laughed outright, light and amused, and shared the joke. “There’s a story from that world I lived on,” he told her. “It loses a lot in translation, I’m afraid, but there’s this whole joke about swallows carrying coconuts. I couldn’t resist.”

“You’ll have to tell us, sometime,” Numair said. “I’ve never heard a myth from another world.”

“Of course you have,” Jack told him, gentle and fond. “I told you plenty that first week. But if the weevils are heading this way, we should make camp sooner rather than later,” He added, changing the subject. “Our mages should rest up.”

“I’m fine,” Numair protested, but they all shot him a wry look. Even Alanna, who must have been just as tired as Numair, glared at him. He wilted slightly in the saddle.

“It’s been days,” Numair said crossly. “I’m not a flower.”

“You’re a lovely summer blossom,” Jack told him dryly, and Daine snorted. Numair glared. “And we’re going to need you to power my storage receptacle, so you need to rest.”

“I’ve been doing nothing but resting,” Numair complained, gesticulating so that Spots’ reins flapped in the air. The gelding rolled his eyes at Daine. “I’m sitting on the back of a horse, going at an easy walk. That was the first bit of exercise I’ve had in days.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, indicating their gallop.

“Even still,” George said, although his eyes were on a glaring Alanna, “The rest can only do you good, and you as well, my Lioness. If these beasties are as nasty as I hear they are, you’ll need it.”

“They are,” Jack said. “Trust me, they are. You can take them down, no problem, but if you’re tired they’ll take advantage of that, and we don’t know how many there are out there.”

“Do you think Daine will be able to talk to them?” Numair asked. Daine had been wondering the same thing. She’d been able to feel the Nepthalae, sort of, but in a backwards kind of way. Where animals and immortals had a sort of presence – they had heartbeats and magic and she could count them – the Nepthalae had been an empty space, like a hole carved out of the world. She certainly hadn’t been able to talk to them.

“I don’t know,” Jack said. “They communicate through a low level telepathic field, so she might be able to. At the same time, your—power, for lack of a better word, comes from this pocket universe, and there’s no proof that it would work on beings from _outside_ this pocket universe.”

“This _what?_ ” George asked.

“Apparently, we’re isolated from the rest of the universe,” Alanna explained, glancing at Jack.

“The rest of the universe doesn’t have—magic,” Jack said, wincing at the word ‘magic.’ “The Gift, your gods – that stuff only exists here.”

“But the weevils _are_ here,” Daine reasoned, thinking aloud. “If they’re on our world, then they have to follow our rules. If they’re animals, I should be able to talk to them.”

“Maybe they’re not animals,” Jack pointed out. “I don’t know what they are. What would the difference be, for you, between animal and sentient creature, if the sentient creature is not human? You couldn’t speak to the Nepthalae, could you?”

Daine frowned. “No,” she said. “No, I suppose not.”

“That’s an interesting distinction,” Numair murmured after a moment. “But she can speak to basilisks and dragons, and they’re sentient.”

Daine frowned and glanced at Numair. The word ‘sentient’ was familiar, but she still didn’t know what it meant. He smiled warmly at her, correctly interpreting her look. “Sentience: it’s the ability to think and reason,” he told her.

I take personal offence to that, Cloud said immediately.

“Animals can think,” Daine told Numair, affronted.

“The ability to plan for the future,” Jack elaborated. He glanced at Numair, who looked back him curiously, clearly fascinated. “To engineer and learn complex mathematics, to solve problems and puzzles. Two qualifications for sentience are to have a language and art.”

“ _I_ can’t do complex mathematics.” Alanna muttered, and startled a short laugh out of Jack.

“Yes you can,” he said easily. “You have the ability to learn it, if you work at it long enough. You understand numbers in the abstract, rather than the literal. You get five as the number five, and don’t need to think of it as five apples, or whatnot.”

I can do that too, Cloud snapped, echoed by the other horses.

You’ve been changed by my magic, Daine told them silently, thoughtfully. You think more like a two-legger, now.

I suppose, Cloud murmured.

“Tkaa and Kitten do those things, though,” Daine said aloud, patting one of her saddlebags where Kitten was curled up, asleep. “And the animals that change because of me. I can still talk to them.”

Numair hummed thoughtfully and Jack shrugged.

“We’ll see when we run into them,” Jack said. “Silly to speculate, really. We’ll know very quickly whether or not you can speak with them.”

“Still interesting, though,” Numair said with a smile to Daine. She grinned back at him, knowing that he would theorize right up until she looked a weevil in the eye, and even then, he would experiment ever after.

“Speculate away then,” Jack told him indulgently, and Alanna groaned.

“Oh, now you’ll never shut him up. Should we make camp?” she asked.

“We’re still on a main road,” George put in. “We oughtta go off into the woods a bit. I think there’s a stream ‘bout a quarter mile up that way.” He gestured.

“Sounds good,” Daine said, guiding Cloud off the road. “There aren’t many Immortals around,” she continued as they followed her. “Or, nothing nasty, anyway. There’s a unicorn – the nice kind – a little ways away, but he won’t want to talk to us.”

Jack’s smile was wistful. “I don’t suppose you could call him over?”

“You’re no blushing virgin, sorry,” Daine told him cheekily, and Jack chuckled a little, sadly.

“No, I’m afraid not.” He guided Red around a stone. “How is it that you sense Immortals?” he asked, after a moment. “And can you sense me?”

Daine shrugged. “I can just feel them. They’re like colors, you know, all gold and silver. You’re—I felt you when you first arrived here. You’re sort of there, now that I think about it,” she added, cocking her head at him and reaching out with her magic thoughtfully. “You come in fits and starts. You’re a regular two-legger to me, just a little bit—off.”

“Immortal,” George repeated slowly after a moment. Jack winced.

“He can’t die. He comes back to life,” Alanna told George succinctly and the Baron’s eyebrows shot up. Jack looked uncomfortable.

“How’d that happen, then?” George asked.

Jack glanced away. “It’s a long story,” he muttered. Red snorted, clearly sensing his stress, but the dappled gelding didn’t comment.

“There’s people who would kill for such a power,” George said, eyeing Jack.

“They’re idiots,” Jack growled. He rubbed at Red’s withers with his thumb uncomfortably.

George opened his mouth to say something more, but Alanna caught his eye. Daine watched her friend shake her head. George frowned, but said nothing.

They rode in silence for a long while, until Numair broke it.

“I think I hear the brook,” he said.


	7. Chapter 6

**This is a place that does not exist.**

**It sits on the boundary of Dream and the Void, hardly real at all.**

**This place is without depth or space; like an oil painting, it oozes onto itself.**

**The Bad Wolf sets Uusoae free when she opens the universe, accidentally, like a giant tripping over a prison, breaking the walls. The Chaos Queen does not care. There is a hole in the universe, and Chaos grows stronger as it widens, as things fall through. The Great Gods do not know that she is here, and that she is free. The Guardian of the Gates is hurt, off in a cave somewhere licking his wounds but when he has healed, he will fix the hole. This must not happen. Uusoae smiles and makes a fist, and then makes seven hundred fists. Somewhere, a goat begins to wail.**

 

\---

 

 “I think this is a waste of time,” Ianto muttered.

“Oh, really? I’m so glad you think that, sweetheart,” Rikash snapped, and Ianto rolled his eyes.

They were flying, but they weren’t going forward. Rikash’s wings whispered up and down, and Ianto rose and fell with each beat, but there was no other indication of movement. There were no landmarks, nothing rushing past, not even a breeze. It was as though Ianto were sitting on one of those kiddy rides outside of a shop, moving up and down without going anywhere at all.

“Now what?” Ianto asked.

“We keep flying,” Rikash replied grimly.

“At least when we walked I felt productive,” Ianto muttered, resting a hand on the orange bungee cable. He looked up to the wicked claws that held it.

“Really? How lovely for you. There’s one problem.” Rikash did not look down at him. He kept his eyes straight ahead, on the horizon that did not exist.

“Yeah?” Ianto asked, twisting his head to look up to Rikash’s face.

“Yes. I can’t find the ground.” Rikash’s voice was wry, but Ianto could detect what lay under that: fear.

Ianto looked down into the endless dark and winced. It was silly to feel vertigo, he told himself unsteadily. He was dead. He didn’t have a body. Nonetheless, fear crept into his voice, too. “Great. We could just _expect_ it.” There was nothing to be afraid of. It was just darkness.

But he was only human, despite being dead, and fear of the dark was as instinctual as the breath he didn’t need. It seemed the same for Rikash.

“I’d rather fly,” Rikash replied, wings still whispering up and down. “I prefer it to walking. These claws aren’t made to walk.”

Ianto rubbed his thumb on the bungee cable, looking at the ugly orange stripes rather than the dark. “Fair enough,” he said.

\---

Jack sat by the fire and poked at it with a long stick. Sparks flew into the air like fireflies and he sighed, watching them.

It was still light out. George had gone hunting with Alanna at his side, presumably to explain about Jack’s sensitivity to his damn past. She’d looked to him for permission first, which he appreciated, and gave.  It was easier if George was on the same page, but Jack didn’t have the energy to explain to someone else.

Daine was sitting across from Jack in silence, cutting up the salt pork that she would eat for dinner while Kitten played with stones at her feet. Father off, Numair was on his back in a bedroll, humming to himself as he thought about whatever problem he was trying to solve in his head.

A soft nose touched his shoulder and Jack sighed, reaching up a hand to pat his concerned gelding’s cheek. “I’m alright,” he told Red, who snuffled, clearly not buying it.

“He says you worry too much,” Daine said after a moment. She’d finished cutting her dinner, and tossed a stone playfully for Kitten, who chirped delightedly and raced to catch it. “Are you alright? I’m sorry about George—”

Jack waved her apologies away. “He’s sharp, your Baron,” he said with a wry smile. “He asks good questions. Whether I want to answer them is a different story.” Red huffed into Jack’s hair, and bent further to nudge his back affectionately. Jack reached up and behind, twisting a little so he could scratch the horse’s ear.

“You told me you were on the run, when we were getting your coat fixed in Stone Hill,” Daine said. “It’s whatever happened to you that you’re running from, isn’t it? It’s more than just Ianto, and the Bad Wolf. These weevils are bringing it all back.”

Jack swallowed. Daine’s voice was kind around Ianto’s name, almost tender, and he appreciated it. He looked away from her clever eyes, but he nodded. Daine had demanded truth from him not long ago. Numair had cursed his coat, too. _Less inclined to lie,_ indeed.

But—it hadn’t been terrible. He’d given truth in dribs and drabs, and they had all treated it with the respect it deserved, so there was that. Daine was so terribly kind. His hand slipped from between Red’s ears to the ground, and the horse sighed, lifting his head again to press his nose into Jack’s shoulder.

“Listen,” Daine murmured. “We all know what that’s like. Even George. If you don’t want to tell us, you don’t have to. But Red’s right, you know; it might help if you did.”

Jack moved away from his warm horse to poke at the fire again. Kitten returned with her stone and stopped in front of him. She cheeped and tilted her head to the side, dropped the rock on the ground and pushed herself onto his lap. Startled at the affection, Jack patted her head, a little wary.

The idea of telling Daine, clever but ultimately innocent Daine, about the Four-five-six, and what they did to children, was repellant. The idea of telling her what _Jack_ had done to children to stop them, children like Kitten, made him feel ill.

 “You don’t know what you’re asking for,” he said bitterly after a moment, looking down at the dragon in his lap and feeling Red’s breath whisper through his hair, “It was a horror, don’t you understand? The whole thing, just—horror. What happened on Earth—what I had to do—” He swallowed the sudden panic that rose in his throat.

He got himself under control. “I want to be _here_ , Daine. Talking about it won’t bring them back—nothing can bring them back. This is who I am. It isn’t who I’m proud of; he’s dead and gone. But right here, right now, is who I am, and that’s what matters.” His hand trembled a little against Kitten’s scales, and the dragon’s croon went up an octave in concern.

Daine looked back at him calmly. The sun was slanting in the sky, and it dappled the ground through the trees. Owen had said that Daine’s parents were gods: in this light, Jack could believe it.

“But it does bring them back,” she replied softly after a moment. “They live on in your memory, and in ours.”

Jack’s vision blurred but he shook away the sudden, shocking tears. “Sometimes,” he whispered, “you don’t want to bring them back. That scream, Daine—” he hadn’t meant to say that. He choked on it. Damn his coat. “I’m not that man anymore. I—I don’t want to be.” 

Kitten whistled quietly up at him and Red nuzzled his shoulder, and Jack felt more alone than he had in a long time. The dappled gelding lifted his head. 

He must have said something to Daine, because she sighed and rose to squeeze Jack’s shoulder. “Alright,” she murmured. “I’ll stop. What did you think of what you saw of the castle?”

Jack looked up at his horse, who huffed innocently and wandered off to graze. He caught his breath, grateful for the subject change. “Impressive, since you don’t know the science of tall buildings yet,” he managed, collecting himself.

“I take offense to that,” Numair remarked from his bedroll.

“Aren’t you supposed to be napping?” Daine told him sternly.

“And leave you alone and defenseless with Captain Harkness? I don’t think so,” Numair teased. Jack snorted. Numair had clearly eavesdropped on that entire conversation, but he was kind, too. Jack found that he didn’t mind, so much. 

Stuffing everything back down was hard, but the lighthearted joking helped. He took another breath. “We’ve already established that she doesn’t want to run away with me,” Jack told him. “And I asked so nicely, too.”

Daine giggled.

“Well, that was before she knew you really _could_ show her the stars,” Numair said, twinkling dark eyes just barely visible from beneath his blankets. His tousled hair was wild on his head. Daine kept on chuckling.

“Go to back to sleep, dolt,” she told him tenderly, and Numair grumbled.

“And now she tries to be rid of me!” he cried, rolling over. “ _Alanna_ isn’t confined to a bedroll.”

There was a crashing sound in the underbrush. George was coming back to camp, Alanna close beside him. Numair had been loud; clearly they had heard him complaining. “That’s because Alanna would kill us all with her eyes if we tried,” George said cheerfully, shouldering past a shrub and stepping into camp.

“Numair expended more power than me,” Alanna grumbled, just behind him. “I was just the backup. Besides, I’m a knight: I practically live my life exhausted.”

“That’s not exactly encouraging,” George told her dryly.

Jack glanced at Daine. She winked at him. Fondness for her warmed his gut.

“What’s for dinner?” Jack asked. Alanna held up a pheasant. “Mm,” Jack said. He shooed Kit from his lap to stand, and held out a hand, offering to skin it, “Haven’t had that in _ages_.”

“Pheasant, really?” Alanna asked incredulously.

“They live in the woods,” Jack said with a shrug. He sat down again to pluck the bird and offered the longest flight feathers to Kitten. She’d come right back to him and rested her head adoringly on his knee. “When you live in a city, you don’t see it much.” Kitten took the long feathers and sniffed them.

“You’re right, actually,” George replied. “When I lived in Corus, it was all mutton and chicken and pork. All farmed; nothing wild.”

“Easier,” Jack said, shucking feathers. “Probably especially so, given your Immortal problem.”

“Yes,” Alanna looked out into the woods. “We didn’t run into anything nasty, but there were a few worrying footprints, Daine.”

“Looked like Coldfangs,” George muttered.

“What?” Jack asked.

“Coldfangs,” Numair explained from his bedroll. “They hunt thieves. They’re reptilian in shape and form, excellent trackers, and they can drop the temperature. They’re also venomous.”

“Thieves’ Dread,” George said. “They used to whisper stories of them in the Dancing Dove, late at night to scare the kiddies.”

“Oh,” Jack said, not quite knowing how to respond. “That sounds nasty.”

“They are,” Daine replied. “But what were they doing _here_? There aren’t any thieves about.”

George raised an eyebrow, but Daine waved him away. “You know what I mean.”

Alanna shrugged. “Hunting, maybe. There might be bandits about, you never know. Maybe they were making a nest.”

“ _Do_ they make nests?” George asked. He sounded alarmed. Alanna shrugged again, looking to Daine.

“I have no idea,” Daine said. “Next time I see one, I’ll ask.”

There was a short silence, and Jack began to gut the bird. “Next time,” he announced after a moment, looking down at his bloody fingers, “I’m hunting. I’m tired of skinning things.”

Daine had turned a little green, but Alanna grinned at him. “Be my guest,” she said. “You and I will go together. You should learn how to track Immortals, anyway. It’s a useful skill.”

What I should do, Jack thought wryly to himself, is program my wrist strap to scan for them. _That_ would be really helpful. Instead he said, “Yeah, alright.”

“Do I have to get into it?” George asked dryly. “I’m a jealous man, Captain Harkness.”

Alanna stuck her tongue out at her husband. Daine laughed.

“Jack’s been nothing but a gentleman,” she assured him, eyes dancing.

“So says you!” Numair said, all mock indigence, from his bedroll. Jack spoke over him, playing along.

“Thank you, Daine,” he said with an intentionally comical leer, so that everyone laughed.

It was good to hear their laughter, Jack thought, spirits improving. He really did like these people. It was too late now to do anything about it, short of leaving, and he had no plans to go off-planet until he fixed these Gates. Even without the agreeable Tortallans, the gods here had bribed him well.

And Owen was here. Owen might’ve been a pain in the ass, but there was no denying Jack’s affection for the man. Jack speared the pheasant and set it over the fire.

“We have a while before dinner’ll be ready,” he said after the laughter had died. “And you can’t beat stories around a campfire. Anyone have anything good?”

Kitten sat up with a cheap, clearly delighted at the thought of a story.

“George, you tell one,” Alanna said, waving her hand. “I feel like I always tell the same ones at court functions.”

“This isn’t a court function,” Jack said, affronted. “Do you honestly think that I belong in a court? Then again,” and here he grinned charmingly at Daine, “There is fun to be had, in court.”

“You dog,” Numair laughed.

Daine waved at Numair. “This coming from you!” she said and then winked at Jack. “Numair used to go through the court ladies like water.” 

Numair spluttered and Jack grinned. “Knew I liked you,” he said to the flustered mage.

“Tell them a story, George,” Numair finally managed to get out, “before Daine starts revealing embarrassing tales from my youth.”

“You are a youth,” Jack told him.

“Yes, he means the year before last,” Daine chuckled. “But I haven’t heard any stories from you recently, George.”

“Fair enough.” George hummed. “You know I used to live down in Corus when I was a lad,” George started and Jack nodded.

“Alanna said that you were the king of thieves, once upon a time.” Jack could not hide his interest. It was a romantic notion, a king of thieves. Tortall was like that – all knights and chivalry and mages. He really could learn to love this place.

“Did she now?” George looked to Alanna, but he smiled, and didn’t seem angry. “Let’s see then. D’you want the story of how I went crooked, or the story of how I went straight?”

That was a familiar request. Jack smiled. “I know how you went straight. You went straight the same way I went straight, I imagine – met a few people who changed your outlook. Let’s hear how you went crooked.”

“That’s a fair assessment,” George replied, with a soppy look to his Lioness. He turned back to Jack. “Alright then.” He stretched and then looked up at the sky, where the sun was starting to set.

“Ain’t a nice story, really,” he said. Jack watched Numair roll over in his bedroll so that the mage faced them, intrigued. Kitten snuggled into Jack’s lap and Jack, surprised, curled an arm around the little dragon.

“The true ones rarely are,” Jack said, and George shrugged and began.

It _was_ an unpleasant story, but it was certainly an exciting one. George was a fantastic storyteller. He spoke of being a petty thief, little more than a pickpocket, before being swept up in some sort of gang warfare. He saved the life of a young noble lady and earned himself the enmity of the man who had wanted to rape her – luckily, that man was wanted by the previous King of the Rogue, and by killing him George won favor. He talked about internal politics, and the situation that allowed him to confront the King one night and slit his throat in a political move that crowned George the King of the Rogue at the tender age of seventeen. Jack was rather impressed, truth be told.

“I ain’t never felt guilty for it,” George said with an offhand shrug, “they’re all murderers and thieves down there. From the bottom lookin’ up, it’s the way of the world. Business.” He shrugged again.

“I can’t even imagine,” Daine said quietly. “We had gangs and such in Snowsdale, but they were hardly better than bandits.”

“All those I hurt would’ve hurt me right back in return,” George told Daine. “Fair’s fair, even down in the Lower City.”

Alanna was smiling at him a little. She didn’t just accept him; she already knew the story. Of course she did. She’d probably met him while he was still a thief. That was probably an interesting story, too. Briefly, Jack envied such closeness. “Not many honorable thieves out there,” Alanna said.

“Hardly call it honor,” George told her dryly. “Sentimentality, is what it is. Still, got me far in life, so I can’t complain.” He smiled at her.

“It’s a familiar story,” Jack said quietly. “You never try to hurt the innocent ones; that was always one of my rules, too.” He shooed a sleepy Kitten out of his lap and poked at the bird. “Looks like dinner’s ready.”

 George leaned over to help Jack take the pheasant off the fire. “Every so often you get lucky, though,” he said, hazel eyes sharp on Jack’s blue ones. “That’s what you gotta remember—you think of the ones you saved, rather than the ones you lost.”

Jack’s breath caught, and he almost dropped the bird in the fire. Damn, but George was perceptive. “Yeah,” he managed to rasp. Jack swallowed, banished the memory of that scream, and helped cut the pheasant.


	8. Chapter 7

“I have a thought,” Rikash said into the darkness.

“Really? I’m so glad,” Ianto said. “Do share.”

The Stormwing jostled Ianto a bit for his sarcasm. “What would happen if we just expected to find the Realms of the Dead?”

“ _Your_ Realms of the Dead,” Ianto reminded him. “I thought you weren’t allowed.”

“I’m not. Maybe you could vouch for me.” The Stormwing looked down at him, bones clicking lightly in his hair. 

Ianto peered back up at him. “Maybe I don’t belong there, either,” he said.

Rikash scowled. “Well, I’m getting bored,” he complained, fanning his wings to glide. “I want to try something else.”

Ianto sighed and kicked his legs thoughtfully, swinging a little on his orange bungee cable. “What would your Realms of the Dead look like?” he asked. If he was going to try to find it, then he might as well know what to expect.

The Stormwing shrugged; Ianto could feel it through the cable. “Well, that’s helpful,” Ianto said.

\---

George Cooper had the Sight.

It wasn’t something he advertised, although it was reasonably well known, nowadays. It had helped, in his days as the Rogue, and it helped now as well, as King Jon’s Spymaster.

Jack Harkness was interesting because he was blocked entirely. The man was a golden blur, bright enough to hurt George’s eyes. If he appeared in George’s dreams at all, it was briefly, painfully, and drowned out by a wolf that howled loud and clear as the sound of a bell.

Alanna had explained this, of course. Jack was immortal though some sort of accident with a goddess called Bad Wolf. It explained the howling, at least.

Tonight, full from dinner and content with Alanna’s warm weight next to him, George fell easily into sleep, but his dreams were beyond strange.

There was a woman in darkness – she looked Yamani, but that wasn’t quite right. She had no body, and she was dead. There were images that flickered – a man who betrayed Jack, a golden blur. She was a genius.

The dream melted, and then George was standing in a great green field. The sky was dark and gray, and mist rose from the grass. There was a door incongruously in the middle of it. It was a strong oak door, lined with metal and without a wall or a lintel to support it.

 _\--If you go through,--_ said a voice, _\--I will not be able to retrieve you. Open the door. Do not step beyond it.—_

That sounded—interesting. George pulled open the door.

Beyond the door was a darkness so complete that it almost hurt the eyes. George squinted. He did not step forwards – only a great fool would ignore a warning like that, especially given what was on the other side. The dark made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

It was an abyss, and it was terrifying. George squinted.

Very far away, there was a light. Like looking from the wrong end of a spyglass, George could see something. He leaned forward. It was—

 It was a Stormwing, flying through the darkness. There was a man sitting on an orange rope that hung grasped in the Immortal’s legs. They were both very small and very far away.

Do not step through the door, George remembered. It was very tempting, to see those faraway figures clearer, but he did not. That abyss looked like it could swallow him whole.

Abruptly, the Stormwing banked. “Oh!” it cried, startled, swiping his wings back as thought to halt momentum that wasn’t there. The man on the sling yelped. Their voices sounded like echoes from a very deep cave, hollow and indistinct.

“Rikash!” the man on the sling scolded faintly, as the rope swung precariously when the Stormwing jerked. The Stormwing banked, not responding. It looked directly at George, and George felt a fission of fear down his spine, even though it was too far for George to really see his eyes. The man on the rope looked up at the Stormwing, and then at George. He stared.

“That’s different,” he said, voice distorted and distant.  

“Hello,” George replied, confused. He wasn’t sure his voice would carry that far away. The fact that they could see him was surprising – they looked to be miles and miles away. Nevertheless, there was no cause to be unfriendly.

The man on the sling spoke. His voice came in a wispy echo. “And—who would you be?”

“That’s George Cooper, Baron of Pirate’s Swoop,” the Stormwing answered slowly. His voice was just the tiniest bit stronger. “And it’s very, very upsetting that I know that.”

He squinted and then all at once recognized the distant face. Surprise raised the small hairs at the back of his neck. “You’re—Daine’s Rikash,” George said. “You died in the Immortal’s war.” This wasn’t good. Dead things were meant to stay dead, as far as he was concerned.

"Yes," Rikash said. He flapped his wings and faced George, clearly trying to come closer, but it was no avail. "Where are you? We're looking for the Realms of the Dead."

"I don’t know." George said honestly. "You're lost?"

"Are you alive?" the man on the orange rope said urgently with his faint, fading voice. He seemed to sit up straighter in his sling, though it was hard to tell at the distance. "How is it that you're here? Can we follow you out?"

"I am alive, but I don't think so," George said. He watched carefully for a reaction. The man - and he was young, George realized, squinting, in his early twenties - kept his face calm, though George knew that he was disappointed. It was very tempting to take a step forwards to see better, but that would be beyond the door, and into that abyss, and that would end very badly indeed. "Who are you?"

"Ianto, Ianto Jones," the man introduced himself, cupping his mouth in a shout. It didn’t much help. "I'm looking for Jack Harkness, have you heard of him?"

"Oh honestly," the Stormwing said, and his voice was now noticeably stronger than that of the man. "Do you think of nothing else?"

"Mind like a train," Ianto Jones replied.

George blinked a little. He didn't know what a train was, but thought better of asking. He cupped his hand around his mouth too, and spoke louder. "Yes, I have heard of him. I’m traveling with him."

Ianto sat back in his sling. He muttered something indistinct that didn’t carry at all, but there was something in the distant slump of his shoulders that told George what the man thought _traveling_ meant. It wasn’t entirely farfetched. George had _met_ Jack Harkness, after all.

George snorted. "None o' that," he said. "I'm a married man."

"You clearly haven't met Jack then," Ianto said, almost too soft to hear.

"I don't even want to know, why do you insist on telling me things I don't want to know?" Rikash moaned, long suffering. George wondered why his voice was so much stronger than Ianto’s.

“I hear tell the man's immortal," George said carefully, watching for a reaction.

"He's what now?" Rikash asked. He craned his neck to look down at his absurd passenger.

Ianto said something, but George didn’t hear. At his puzzled look, Ianto shouted louder:  "He told you?" It was so very faint. Apparently Jack's immortality wasn't news. Now that was interesting.

"I found out," George replied.

Ianto Jones growled something. It didn’t come through; he was too far. At George’s puzzled look, the Stormwing spoke for him.

“He wants to know if you killed him,” he said. The man looked up and hissed something to the Stormwing, too soft to hear.

"I'm appalled you'd think so poorly of me," George said loftily. He squinted for a reaction. Ianto Jones was hard to read, and not only from the distance; George had an impression of a calm face with guarded eyes, but that was more his Sight than it was actually seeing anything. "I just said I was traveling with him - why would that mean I'd tried to kill him? No, lad. My wife and friends saw him die and then come back."

Ianto winced visibly. "I see. My apologies. Where is he?" he added, louder, and his voice took on an urgent note. "There was an old woman, trying to use me as a bargaining piece--"  

George hummed. "So you _are_ that Ianto."

"You know her, then?" Ianto asked sharply.

"Aye, I do," George replied. "But more importantly, I think you should know that Jack is in Tortall, and not the world you came from." George wasn't much for superstition, but gods were gods - he didn't think saying a god's name here would have any ill effect, but it was best not to risk it.

Ianto asked a question, but it blurred and smudged and came indistinctly.

"Do I what?" George asked, confused

Ianto cupped his hands around his mouth "Torchwood," he said, and that meant nothing to George, really, except for what Alanna had told him: it was the place where Jack had lived. George shook his head—he didn’t really hear the question but he understood it; George was not from Torchwood, or had anything to do with it, really.

Ianto looked up at the Stormwing who shrugged down at him. They exchanged words, but they were too far away to hear.

Ianto turned back to George. "Where is Tortall?" he shouted.

"It's a country," George replied, bemused. "On the coast, bordering Scanra, Galla, Tusaine and Trya. I'm the Baron—"

"—Of Pirate's Swoop,” Ianto said with George, though he didn’t really hear him until Ianto continued, “yes, I remember." It came faintly but true. George smiled a little at the young man's impertinence – this one had spirit. It showed even through the distance. "But why is Jack no longer with Torchwood?"

George shrugged. "He ran away, I think," he said.

"Jack doesn't _run away_ ," Ianto snapped, affronted. "He's the bravest man I know."

"I don't think it was a question of bravery, lad," George said darkly.

"Baron—" Rikash started in alarm but the rest of the sentence was lost as his voice faded entirely. Before him, the door swung closed.  Ah, George thought. Time to wake up, then. He expected to open his eyes to daylight, but he still stood in the field of grass, under a gray, overcast sky.  

He blinked.

Gainel, god of dreams, had appeared in the great, endless meadow and its incongruous door.

What an odd night, George thought to himself with some humor.

 _\--A gift—_ the Dream God said. _–More for Harkness than for yourself, you understand, but you can take it as such, George Cooper.—_

It was kind of a relief to hear the god clearly, after the faint voices from before. “I don’t think Jack’ll take this gift very well,” George said dryly, remembering Alanna’s tale about Ianto Jones and the old Hag of Graveyards, and Jack falling to pieces. Gainel smiled.

 _\--No, I imagine not. Jones is out of my jurisdiction, Baron.—_ The Dream God fixed George with liquid eyes. _–I cannot pass into the place where he is, and nor can you, or anyone of our world, dead, alive, godly or mortal. I am lucky to have found that door at all. However, I believe Jones is the key to the Gates that Jack Harkness needs. My brother the Sun God disagrees, but has allowed me to do this, after much persuasion. Your next sleep, you will tell Ianto Jones of your mission. –_

“And in return?” George asked, crossing his arms. “I know how to make a bargain with a god, with all due respect, your worship.”

_\--In return, I think you might acquire a friend. All the same, I will trade this for a few restful nights for your Lioness, the next time she is aboard a ship. My sister, the Threefold Goddess, tells me that she gets quite seasick.—_

George regarded Gainel. The information was no skin off his nose, really, and after what his Lioness had told him, he rather thought Jack could use all the help he could get. He’d never made a bargain with the dream god before – all his bargains in the past had been with Kyprioth, the Trickster, who always had an ulterior motive.

“How do I know you’re not tricking me?” George asked with narrowed eyes.

 _\--It is a simple task with a simple reward. If you do not oblige, I will go to the mage Salmalin. I have dealt with him before. You are simply easier, due to your Sight.—_ The god regarded him sternly.

George shrugged. “Very well, Highness. Three weeks rest on ships for my Lioness, spread out over the course of her life. She does get seasick.”

 _\--Good. Tread carefully with Harkness, Baron. Good luck—_ The world faded from gray to dark again, and then to dark shot with red: the backs of George’s eyelids. He blinked, waking.

\---

“Jack!”

Jack sat bolt upright, startled at the voice. He was—he was at his desk? He laid his palms flat on the battered, familiar wood, looking in surprise at the knickknacks he had around the edges. His expression must have communicated something, because a voice caught his attention before he could pick anything up.

“Don’t be stupid, Jack,” Owen snapped, standing in the doorway of Jack’s office. He waved his hand around, indicating Torchwood at large. “It blew up, remember?”

Jack’s palms slipped to his side. He was dreaming. Of course. “Right,” he said and then looked up at Owen. “I think I’d rather wake up outside,” Jack told him plaintively. “This is—too familiar.”

Owen looked at him for a moment and then sighed, coming to sit at the chair on the other side of Jack’s desk. “It sort of is,” he agreed. “I ended up standing next to the autopsy table.” He shivered.

“Sorry,” Jack muttered, as if it was his fault. Who knew, he thought darkly. It might be. “Shall we venture to the surface, then?” he asked, rising.

“Yeah,” Owen said. Jack walked out of the dream version of his office, resisting the urge to look back. Owen strode at his heels. They went down a rickety flight of stairs and out to the cog door, passing Gwen, Tosh and Susie’s desks, all empty, of course. Jack caught a glimpse of the coffee machine and looked away, thinking of Ianto. It got worse, though: from the cog door, they went up through the passageway, and into the tourist office, which was Torchwood’s cover. Ianto’s desk was impeccably clean—except whatever cruel god that made these dreams had left a coffee stain there. Jack swallowed a lump in his throat, moving on. At last, they reached the dock, but the memories were thick there, too. Jack strode past, brushing them away – Ianto Jones, twenty-two, so desperate for a job that he waited for Jack, holding out a cup of heavenly coffee like an offering.

Torchwood was a graveyard.

Jack led dear, dead Owen up to the Millennium Center. They both stood in the bright sunlight under the monument, breathing a little heavily.

“What’ve you got for me?” Jack asked after a moment. Owen was lost in his own thoughts, it seemed, because Jack had to repeat himself.

“George Cooper has the Sight,” Owen said. “I could talk to him, if you wanted me to.”

“The Sight?”

Owen shrugged. “He’s, I dunno, more open to things. He sees clearly.”

“That’s specific,” Jack muttered.

Owen glared. A breeze from the quay ruffled through Jack’s hair. It smelled like salt and home. He ignored it.

“I’m not dealing with science, in case you haven’t noticed, Harkness,” Owen growled. “It certainly beats the bloody fairies.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “The fae are—”

“Never mind, never mind, I know,” Owen said, waving a hand. “Just watch out for Cooper. He’s sharp.”

Jack grinned suddenly, fondly. “I think I remember telling you the same thing, once. Do you think it’s ironic that George has Gwen’s last name?”

“I think it’s meaningless,” Owen said.

“Of course it’s meaningless, I asked you if it was ironic, not the answer to all our problems.”

“Yeah, fine, sure, whatever,” Owen muttered.  Jack rolled his eyes again. “Anyway, I think my mate Gainel might be making a bargain with Cooper. Just a head’s up.”

Jack sighed. “You have no sense of humor,” he told Owen.

“Yeah? Neither do you.”

“I do too have a sense of humor!” Jack said, indignant.

“Yeah? You bloody liar. You stopped laughing after everyone damn well died, didn’t you?”

“Thanks, Owen.”

“Anytime.”

\---

There was a Girl in Daine’s dream.

“Bad Wolf,” Daine greeted her and smiled. She knew this goddess – she was in the shape of a blonde girl, glowing golden, and tears made tracks down her cheeks. Rose Tyler had looked into the heart of Time, and so this moment existed for eternity. She was, in some ways, Jack’s mother.

“I take the words,” the goddess agreed, “I scatter them through time and space. A message, to lead myself here.”

_Rose, you’ve got to stop this. You’ve got to stop this now! You’ve got the entire vortex runnin’ through your head—you’re gonna burn!_

Daine sighed. The second voice was that of the Doctor, a friend of Jack’s once upon a time. “What do you want to tell me?” she asked the Girl, although she knew by now that the Girl could only speak in riddles. She could only use a handful of words to communicate. She had only said so many in this moment, after all.

“I want you safe,” the Girl said softly. “Protected from the false god.”

_You cannot hurt me; I am immortal!_

That was a third voice, and Daine whipped around, but, as always, she could see nothing but the Girl.

“You are tiny,” the Bad Wolf warned. “I can see the whole of Time and Space. All things—everything dies!”


	9. Chapter 8

Daine woke at dawn, starting in her bedroll.

 _I want you safe. Protected._ The words rang golden in her mind and she rubbed her eyes, trying to get rid of an awful headache. She recognized those words and that voice – it was the Bad Wolf, the goddess from her dreams.

Something dark and muddy was sneaking along the edges of her perception. She reached out to it, sitting up and looking around. Numair’s arm slipped from around her shoulders, thumping softly onto the bedroll.

_Surprise!/fear/run_

Daine blinked, and the feeling was gone.

“Sweet?” She’d woken Numair. He blinked up at her, hair tousled and dark eyes groggy. She smiled down at him.

“Sorry,” she murmured, gently smoothing down his hair, which frizzed from the pillow. “I seem to be waking you up a lot.”

The mage yawned hugely. “I’m used to it by now,” he replied, voice soft. “What was it this time?”

“A warning, I think,” Daine said. She looked out into the woods, stroking behind Numair’s ear with her thumb. “I think the Bad Wolf was warning me.”

Numair hummed for a moment before shaking her off gently. “About?” He sat up and wrapped both arms around her middle, resting his chin on her shoulder.

She leaned back and smiled at him. “I don’t know,” she said.  

“You have no sense of humor,” Jack’s voice rang out, and they both jumped a little and turned toward their friend. He was curled fast asleep in his bedroll. Kitten jerked awake from where she slept at Jack’s feet and huffed at him irritably.

“So says you,” George muttered, sitting up as well. He looked over and smiled in greeting to Daine and Numair. “G’morning,” he said.

“’Lo, George,” Daine replied, echoed by Numair. Kit cheeped at him. Four sets of eyes went to Alanna, nothing more than a tuft of red hair poking out of George’s bedroll.

There was a whisper on Daine’s senses again and she gently pulled herself from Numair’s arms. Frowning, she looked around.

_Here/here/quick/food?/maybe/careful--!_

“I think we have company,” Daine whispered and started to rise. Numair shook off the blankets and began to roll up their bed, and George turned to wake Alanna. Jack, hearing the scuffle, opened his eyes drowsily.

“Whass th’ rush?” he slurred.

“I think I might’ve just found your weevils,” Daine murmured. Jack sat up like a shot.

“Where?” he asked grimly, reaching for his revolver. Daine knelt on one knee beside him, placing her hand over his on the weapon, lowering it. Kitten sat up too, looking around anxiously.

“Wait,” she said. “I can hear them.”

Jack nodded. He held her gaze for a long moment. With his serious blue eyes, he conveyed that he trusted her, and that she needed to be careful. She squeezed his hand, and then looked away. She heard Jack start to rise, too. He rolled up his bed.

Daine closed her eyes, reaching out to whatever it was in the woods. She could feel that the five horses were instantly awake, ears pricked forward. They were uneasy; all of them had smelled the thing in the woods—smelled like dark and dank, a little of decay.  The birds were not chirping. Kitten growled softly at Jack’s feet, but Daine hushed her.

Who’s there? she called, as loudly as she could.

_Heard that/yes/who/where?_

“They’re—” Daine bit her lip. They spoke quickly and with many voices, replies overlapping questions. It sounded as if they were one animal broken up into many, and then smashed back together. “You said they were telly-pathic,” she whispered to Jack.

“Telepathic, yes,” Jack replied softly, muscles tense, head high and looking around. The dragon remained crouched at his feet, teeth bared. “Low level. They can feel each other, I think.”

“They can,” Daine whispered back. “It sounds like there are a lot of them, all speaking at once—it’s confusing, and nothing like I’ve ever—”

_There he is/there/there!/others?/eat?/there/there/there!_

Daine opened her mouth to yell a warning, but Jack reacted before any of them even moved: something brown and fierce charged out of the woods and he ducked, rolling out of the way. The horses reared and bolted and Kitten shrieked in fright, lunged for the bedrolls, hiding under them, trembling.

It was man shaped, Daine thought dimly, except its four fingers were knarled and dark. Its skin was the color of sandy soil, eyes deep set and beady. There was only a sparse sprinkling of hair on its brown, deeply grooved scull. Jack had been right, its teeth were vicious—she could see four primary canines on the lower jaw, long and wickedly curved, and she did not doubt that they were sharp.

Daine lunged for her bow and black, glittering fire whispered around Numair’s hands. She heard Alanna go for her sword and George was holding a knife by its blade, ready to throw.

_Food?/yes/hunt!_

“No, stop!” Daine shouted and the creature fell back, staring at her. Three others stepped tentatively from the woods, forming a loose circle around the humans.

_Call?/speech?/who?/hungry!/ HIM/ food/hunt!_

“No,” Daine repeated, stepping forward and lowering her bow.

“Daine,” Jack warned, and she heard Numair whisper a prayer behind her.

“If you hurt us, we’ll have to hurt you,” Daine told them.

_Hurt them/yes/hungry_

“Daine, they respond to power—” Jack hissed.

“We are not food,” Daine asserted, taking Jack’s words to heart. She understood this kind of game, for all that she disliked it; many of her other animal friends lived in such a steep hierarchy as well. She drew her Wild Magic around herself like a cloak: she was the king stallion, the bull sea lion, the pack leader. “So back off.”

_What/why/who?_

“ _Stand down!”_ Daine growled and they flinched, backing away. The largest one gave a long, low moan, like a cow or a buck, and the others responded.

_Too much/too strong/not good_

“What are they doing?” Alanna whispered. She had her sword out, her stance ready, but her eyes darted in confusion from one weevil to another. They were bowing and retreating, lowing like cattle, as though they were injured.

“Yes, yes, Daine!” Jack hissed. “That’s exactly what they did for Owen! They’re submitting. Can you ask them how they got here?”

Daine bit her lip. She didn’t think she’d harmed them, but they sounded like they were in pain. “How did you come to be here?” she demanded, voice harsh, but she watched them uneasily.

_Follow/the rift/hungry/so hungry_

“Rift?” Daine asked, confused. The lowing stopped and the largest growled, eyeing her as she showed them confusion rather than dominance.

“Daine,” Jack warned.

“Explain yourselves!” Daine demanded, forcing them with her power. The weevils cringed again, lowing. “What rift?”

_The Big Place/stone and steel /darkness/bronze light_

“Cardiff,” Jack whispered. “It must be. A rift in time and space? Daine?”

“The Big Place,” Daine told him, biting her lip, utterly confused. The weevils all spoke together, slightly out of synchrony, and it was hard to distinguish what they were saying. “Somewhere with stone walls and flashing lights? Stone and steel, they say, and bronze light, and darkness.”

“In the sewers,” Jack whispered. “Why are they here?”

“Well?” Daine asked, turning back to them. Her voice was hard. “Why are you here?”

_Thingsdienearhim/HUNGRY_

Daine took a step back from the force of their thought, gasping, and as though sensing her weakness they lunged. Jack was fast, faster than Daine had imagined. He darted to one side and grabbed one of the weevils by the neck, wrenching it around, giving Daine time to leap back and draw her bow. Numair’s magic flared beside her; two weevils went down. Alanna lunged at the last, fighting it off with a slash of her sword, ripping through the strange leathery fabric it wore as clothing. Dark blood welled up and the creature turned tail and fled, howling like a wolf; Jack’s weevil struggled, tossing him to and fro and the four two-leggers rushed to help.

“I need a tranquilizer!” Jack gasped, managing to get his hand over the creature’s eyes. It bellowed and slashed with its teeth; Daine feared to draw her bow lest she hit Jack but Alanna leaped into the fray without hesitation, slashing with her sword, and Daine could see where this battle was going.

“ _STOP!_ ” she thundered, throwing all her will behind it. The weevil froze. Jack took a step back, breathing heavily and Alanna went still, coiled like a spring with her sword arm extended, the point inches away from the weevil’s throat.

“Is everyone alright?” Jack asked, glancing back at the others. Daine did not take her eyes from the creature. It stood stock still and moaned. She did not relax until she heard the assent from her friends. Alanna was not even out of breath, voice flat as she affirmed that she was unharmed. She kept the weevil at swordpoint.

“Why are you _here_?” Daine demanded, glaring at the creature and holding it tightly to her will. If it broke free Alanna would kill it without hesitation, and Daine did not want that. The creature watched her with its strange dark eyes. It gave another moan, backing away from Alanna.

_Everything dies/so hungry/my brothers, don’t hurt my brothers!_

“Numair, did you kill them?” Daine asked, eyes never leaving the weevil.

“No, they’re asleep,” he replied.

“Good. Jack, he says he’s here because everything dies?” She watched the weevil’s strange, hypnotic eyes, and the creature lowed again. That was what the Bad Wolf kept telling her, Daine thought. _I want you safe. Protected. All things—everything dies._

_No/death follows him/we follow death_

“Everything—dies?” Alanna asked slowly.

“No,” Jack whispered, his voice suddenly horrified, as he clearly reached the same conclusion as Daine.

“Jack,” Daine said slowly, “Jack, I think he’s saying he followed _you._ ”

Jack took a step away. “N-no,” he stuttered. “Impossible. Impossible!”

“Easy now,” George said and although Daine could not see him she knew he’d put a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Explain that again, lass.”

“Show me,” Daine demanded of the weevil, crouching down next to where he bowed. He flinched away. “Show me!”

_We/all/know/him—_

Images flashed before her eyes: Jack, in a different coat, looking young, so young. _Wait till I find the Doctor he’ll put this right a fixed point in time and space I’m the man who can never die Torchwood outside the government, beyond the police one hundred years of loyal service—_

Images flashed by and Daine watched a city, impossibly advanced, rise around Jack: he never changed, except for the clothes, but around him, always—

“Death,” Daine whispered. “They think you bring death.”

She heard Jack give a choked gasp from behind her. It brought her crashing out of that strange, dark city, and back into herself.

“You’re wrong,” she told the weevil fiercely, angry on behalf of her friend. She knew it down to her bones. It was what the Bad Wolf kept telling her: _Safe. Protected_. Jack didn’t bring death. The weevils were wrong. “He doesn’t bring death, and he doesn’t bring food. Get out of here, go!” She advanced on him and the weevil lowed, leaping to his feet, and running off.

“Daine, we were supposed to catch them,” Alanna said, but Daine hardly heard her. She spun to Jack and marched up to him.

George had a supporting hand on his shoulder him, but Jack’s eyes had gone cold. His face was pale and blank. “I have to leave,” he said, unseeing. “I have to go—”

“Don’t be stupid,” Daine told him. She walked right up into his space and then pulled him into her arms, the whole stupid mass of him.

“D-Daine, you need to—”

“ _You_ need to fix our Gates, remember?” Daine demanded.

“You—you can—Daine, if I bring death—not here, not here too—”

“You do not bring death, you dolt!” she cried, pulling back. Jack watched her with wide eyes and he stood still, as though his very sanity depended on what she would say next.

“They _think_ you bring death,” she told him, on no uncertain terms. “They don’t see time the same way that we do, they don’t see people the same way we do. Jack, you’re immortal. If you stay in one place too long, everyone’s going to die, just of old age. Those weevils, they don’t see the time, they only see the death. They see everyone dying around you,” and here she hugged him tightly, “and they think you’re the cause. You’re _not_ , time is.”

“I’m sure I don’t help!” Jack snarled, trying to wrench away. Daine held him tighter, and Numair, standing slightly behind and to the left of her, laid a firm hand on Jack’s shoulder, Alanna at his back, so they surrounded the frantic man.

“You do help,” Numair said. Jack looked desperately over Daine’s shoulder and into his eyes. Daine could not see Numair, but she knew the compassionate expression on his face by his tone. “You’re trying to fix our Gate, aren’t you? And if I understand you correctly, your Torchwood was an institution to _protect_ people. It was, wasn’t it?”

Jack stood stock still, shaking. It seemed the name of his old home had stunned him, if only for a moment. Daine rubbed his arm. “C’mon, Jack,” she said quietly. “Let’s get some food into you. We’re going to have to hunt down those two that got away.”


	10. Chapter 9

Their support was intoxicating.

He’d fled from Gwen, the last surviving member of Torchwood after everything, fearing the sadness in her eyes and her sympathy. Jack hadn’t wanted to drag it out; Gwen, too, would die one day, and he could not bear it. The past was past, just as he’d told Daine the night before. If he’d learned anything, it was that he had to move on. He had to keep on moving, or it’d catch up to him.

And it did. Hell, did it ever. Ianto’s ghost chased weevils through these woods, and Jack’s grandson stood next to Kitten with blood running from his nose and ears, all Jack’s fault. Tosh and Susie lurked near, with their accusing eyes, and whispers of his brother stalked the shadows. Even Owen literally haunted his dreams.

But Jack, tactile by nature, was starved of friendly touch, and Daine and Numair were clustered close to him, all concerned eyes and supportive words. No one had cared about Jack since he’d left Earth, since everyone died. By rights he should have felt smothered.

But Daine’s shoulder was comfortable when she pulled him down to sit by the fire pit and Numair sat close enough on his other side for Jack to feel the warmth of him, his solidity. Alanna had relit the fire for lunch and Kitten, wriggling from her hiding place, had curled in Jack’s lap. George sat on opposite of the fire, watchful. Owen was right, Jack thought, tamping down the hysterical urge to run off into the woods—the man did have the Sight.

Jack stroked Kitten unhappily, collecting himself. “You’re right about those weevils,” he said hoarsely, after a moment, changing the subject before any of them could push farther. Alanna in particular was regarding him with a worrying mixture of compassion, curiosity, and frustration in her strangely colored eyes.

“Which?” Daine asked, putting some cheese on some bread and handing it to Jack.

“We need to find them.” He took a bite out of the bread, not realizing how hungry he had been. He glanced at her, grateful that she allowed him to steer the conversation away from the terror he’d felt just moments before.

The terror he still felt, to be honest, because the weevils had it right; he did bring death. Torchwood protected people, it was true, but it also destroyed people, in the end. _Jack_ destroyed people, in the end.

Jack decided, guiltily, not to think about it. There were more important things to worry about at the moment, like the weevils and what they— _he_ , what _he_ was going to do with them.

“Well, we’ve got two already,” Numair said, indicating the two that he had put to sleep. “How’s that holding cell of yours?”

“Unfinished,” Jack murmured. He shooed Kitten out of his lap and rose, away from the Tortallans and walked over to get the receptacle. Red had picked his way back once the weevils had gone; now he stood by the saddlebags. As soon as Jack was near, he stepped forward and placed his nose firmly on Jack’s chest, nickering. “I’m fine,” Jack said, patting the gelding’s cheek. “Really. I need to get to my bag.”

The horse snorted and moved out of the way, but he stood with his neck over Jack’s shoulder, breath warming Jack’s face.

“I said I’m fine,” Jack muttered, and Daine chuckled softly from the fire.

“He’s worried, that’s all,” she said.

Jack swallowed, something akin to terror racing down his spine at the appreciation he felt for the concern. This damn planet, he thought, eyes prickling as he rummaged through the saddlebag. Gwen would’ve loved it here.

The thought amused him a little, as he grasped the storage receptacle. It hurt, but gently, in the way of good memories. Tosh and the others would’ve hated Tortall. No computers for Tosh, too kind a place for sarcastic Ianto and cynical Owen and bitter, mad Susie.

Then again, Owen seemed to be taking it rather well, if Jack’s dreams were anything to go by. Jack headed back and squeezed himself in between Daine and Numair, mindlessly seeking the comfort they offered, before realizing belatedly that this was no way to distance himself. “Here,” he said to Numair, tugging on a metal slat, and exposing the circuitry beneath. “I still haven’t got it working.”

He offered the little box to the mage, and Numair took it, humming a little as he turned it over in his hands. He leaned into Jack’s shoulder familiarly as he examined the receptacle, and Jack soaked up the touch. Daine sat close to his other side, warm and alive and smelling like a forest, like the sort of place wild animals lived.

Kitten peered at the receptacle too, claws on Numair’s arm and long neck craned to see. She cheeped curiously.

I might have fallen in love, Jack thought with a kind of detached hysteria. If these two asked him to walk through fire, he probably would, even knowing how painful it was to burn to death.

Numair let out a breath. “I wouldn’t know where to begin,” he admitted. Kitten made a huffing sound when he handed it back to Jack. His long dark hair was still a damned mess from sleeping. God, what a sweetheart.

 “Well then,” Jack managed, setting the contraption down between them. “I’ll just have to explain it to you.” He forced a bright grin.

Daine jostled his shoulder. “Should I be worried?” she teased gently. Jack looked into her deep gray eyes and knew without a shadow of a doubt that Daine not only understood that his smile was a façade, but also knew that he needed it, and even further was going to play along to comfort him. Relief uncurled in his belly, as well as abject, helpless love.

He was doomed.

 Jack smiled at her weakly. The flirting came easy, even though he suspected that his eyes were still red, and his face still felt gritty. “Only if you want to be,” he joked, and Daine jostled him again.

“What should we do about these?” Alanna asked. Jack looked up from Daine’s compelling gray gaze.

 Alanna was gesturing to the two weevils, out cold on the forest floor. She was incredible too, in her way, Jack mused. Kind and strong and a little terrifying. He could love her as well, given the chance.

Better not. Daine and Numair and Red were bad enough. He tried not to think about Kitten. Jack took a breath and focused on the weevils and the task at hand. 

“Do you have any rope?” he asked. George nodded, rising. He liked George too, Jack thought, panicky. Why did he have to like them so much?

“You want to bind them?” George asked.

“Yes,” Jack said. Very gently, he shrugged away from Daine and Numair and their kind, comforting warmth. “Arms behind the back. There’s a trick you can do—bind the arms high up and connect the rope around the neck, so if they struggle, they strangle themselves.”

Daine frowned up at him. “That seems cruel.”

Oh, he had it bad. Even that stung, a little. “Your gods want me to kill them,” Jack reminded her, and himself. “Weevils are smart enough to figure out not to hurt themselves, and we need to control them. We don’t have any holding cells, not yet. What is it you wanted to do with them?”

“We ought to show them to the king,” Numair said, but Alanna growled.

“I’m not setting foot in that castle,” she muttered.

“Even still,” George said, “there’s dungeons aplenty in the castle, and we’re gonna need ‘em. We can’t just keep these beasties trussed up indefinitely, and the god’s’ll want them contained, at least, if not killed.” He looked sharply at Jack.

Jack scowled, not liking the idea of returning to Corus, especially if the weevils were following him.

“Wouldn’t it be better for me to lead them _away_ from a major city?” he asked, keeping his voice steady and sarcastic so he wouldn’t break down again. Once was enough, Jack thought firmly. He had better control than that.

There was a silence.

“That’s a good point, too,” Numair said.

“I’m not killing them,” Daine stated flatly. Jack wanted to hug her. He looked down at the weevils, remembered Torchwood, the old Torchwood, before he was in charge, and shook his head in agreement.

“No,” Jack said slowly. “I don’t _want_ to kill them either, but if it comes to that, I will. Is there a fort or something nearby?”

Alanna bit her lip thoughtfully. “Irontown’s not far, but it’s pretty small.”

“Will they have dungeons?” Jack asked. Alanna nodded.

“Yes,” she said. “Population’s about five hundred, but there is a fort. Lord… ”

“Gasarin, I think,” George supplied when Alanna trailed off. “Decently sized place, that fort. Might not have the supplies for it, though.”

“We can work on that,” Jack sighed. “Can I see that rope?”

George waved him off. “I know the knot you’re talking about. I can do it. Go talk to Numair about your—thing.” He gestured to the receptacle, which Numair had picked up again. The mage was squinting at the wires within, Kitten peeking over his arms. Jack adored him. He sat down again next to the mage and held out a hand. Numair passed it over.

“Daine,” Jack called softly. When she hummed at him, he met her eyes and couldn’t stop the gentle smile. “Can you try to find out how many weevils there are in the general area? Maybe you and Alanna can keep guard.” He glanced back down at the receptacle. This thing was close to the standard one the Shadow Proclamation promoted, but someone had made a bunch of modifications.

He didn’t blame them. The standard was shit. 

“That’s not a bad idea,” Alanna was saying, looking out into the woods. Daine nodded.

“Alright,” she agreed. And then, “Kit?”

The dragon shook her head emphatically and crouched closer to Jack.

“This isn’t child’s play,” Jack told Kit, kind of wishing she would go with Daine. “It’s real complicated stuff.”

Kitten cheeped at him, not seeming to care. Jack narrowed his eyes and then shrugged. “Your funeral,” he said, and then turned to Numair. “Right,” he began. “The thing you have to understand is that this thing is standardized—”


	11. Chapter 10

George had the weevils they had captured tied and ready quickly. He rose from his crouch and looked around, stretching cramped muscles. Daine was sitting cross-legged and quiet, meditating. His wife was walking in circles around the camp, warding them in against more unwelcome intruders while Numair, Jack and Kitten were bent over the small machine. George suddenly found himself with nothing to do.

He strolled up to his wife, and with some charm and persuasion, he managed to leave the stone circle and catch them some real lunch. He wasn't really much of a hunter--he preferred cities, where game was readily available by coin or by clever fingers, but he could manage it well enough out here. He caught them some hares.  

They day passed quietly. George joined Daine in meditation, trying to find that meadow and the door again, but it was to no avail. George was a Seer, but he was no mage.

But when night fell, Gainel strode into his dreamscape.

 _\--You were looking for the door again,--_ he said.

“I couldn’t find it,” George replied.

 _\--No,_ \-- the god murmured. _–No, I imagine you couldn’t. That is an interesting dilemma; I’ll see what can be done about it. Will you speak to the dead, again?—_

“That _is_ the deal,” George said, and the Dream King smiled.

The field melted back into view, and its wooden door. _–You must not step through,--_ Gainel reminded him. _–You will be lost if you step through.—_

George remembered that. But—“What about the other way?” he asked. Gainel tilted his head curiously. “Can they come through to this side?”

The god’s eyes widened with alarm. _–No,--_ he said. _–They would end up somewhere else entirely. The door is unstable; if they came through, there’s no telling what kind of damage they would do.—_

George sighed. “I figured it was something like that.” He walked up to the door and glanced back. He took a deep breath. When the god nodded his approval, he pulled the door open.

The abyss was just as dark as it was before, and the horror of it was still staggering. But now George knew what it was, and he looked into it. Far away, there was a speck of light.

"Back so soon?" Ianto Jones's voice was sharp, far clearer than it had been, for all the distance between them. George thought he was going to nip the temptation to stride forwards in the bud: he sat down, cross legged as if meditating, on the right side of the door. To cross he would have to stand, and he wasn’t going to stand.

Ianto Jones was still perched in his sling, dangling somewhat ridiculously from the Stormwing's claws. His left hand fisted around the orange rope and he leaned to the side, watching George keenly. He seemed…. just a smidge closer, than before.

"Well, we were so rudely interrupted," George said. Ianto's lips quirked.

"This is rather unnerving," the Stormwing said. He flapped towards the door, but did not get any closer. His voice was much clearer than Ianto's.

"Everything here is unnerving,” Ianto said, and then insisted, “but it's contact." He twisted around to look up at Rikash. "Which is better than what we had before." He turned back to George.

He was a clever lad, George thought to himself, impressed with what he saw. In the old days, in the Rogue, Ianto Jones could have been a prize—a spy, a pickpocket, the best informant you could have and loyal to boot, he was sure of it. A pity George was reformed, and a pity Jones was from the wrong world. He could have used him, once upon a time.

"You came looking for us this time, didn't you? How are you managing it?" Ianto asked.

"He's Gifted," Rikash said before George could explain, and Ianto looked up again, glaring.

"Yes, thank you," he snapped, "That's not exactly the answer I was looking for."

Rikash rolled his eyes. "No, seriously, he's Gifted. From my world, you idiot. He has magic."

"Clearly," Ianto muttered, all sarcasm. George suppressed a chuckle.

"I have the Sight, actually," he explained mildly. "I can See things. I can’t go this far afield on my own, you understand, but I have a deal with Gainel, our dream god," he added for Ianto's benefit. “I’m asleep. He took me here, or to my side of here.” He gestured to the door and the threshold. “I can’t pass through.”

Ianto looked at him for a moment. "I suppose if I accept that there's a Realms of the Dead in your world, I have to accept that there's a dream god, too. Polytheism, then," he said, looking up at Rikash. "Rather confusing, that."

"Not my gods, not my problem," the Stormwing replied, and Ianto shook his head. He looked back at George.

"What's your bargain, then?" he asked. "Are you going to help us?"

"Yes and no," George answered. "I don't know how it'll help, really. I think Jack might need you." He looked at Ianto, assessing him. The response to Jack's name was immediate; Ianto sat up straighter in his sling, eyes glinting with determination. It was noticeable even from the distance.

And they were closer, George thought, puzzled. They were definitely closer than before. He could see their eyes, now.

"Well then," he said. "Ianto Jones, reporting for duty, sir. Or is that Baron?" He tilted his head a little, and George chuckled.

"Just George will do, Ianto Jones," he said. Trickster's teeth, he _liked_ the boy. Jack had excellent taste.

Well, he knew that already. Jack had chosen Daine and Numair, and gripped on to them with the desperation of a drowning man clinging to the side of a life raft. There were no people better. George was no fool: he knew the signs, when a scoundrel fell in love. He’d lived them. That it seemed to be both Numair _and_ Daine was a little unusual, but then, Jack was from another world.    

"Alright then, sir," Ianto was saying, prim and proper, and George chuckled again. Jones was all bright eyes and determination, and a force to be reckoned with, he was sure. He was looking at George expectantly, so as promised to Gainel, he began to explain.

"My world," he began, "is apparently in a pocket, separated from the rest of the universe…"

\---

"So, basically," Rikash interrupted the middle of George's explanation, much to Ianto's irritation. "Your Jack Harkness is looking for the Guardian of the Gates, or at least a way to close said Gates."

"Yes," George replied, apparently unoffended at the interjection. His voice became clearer and clearer, the more he spoke. Now he only sounded like he was a room away – a little faint, but perfectly audible. That door was still out of reach, though. "Although to be quite honest I haven't a clue where to start looking for such a thing."

Out in the world of the living, Ianto would agree. But he was in the dead space, and Rikash was adamant that they could get out of it, if they just found a way to do it. Ianto agreed with him: George, alive, sat in a threshold of a doorway, some distance away. Rikash flew towards it, but it didn’t get any closer.  Ianto was sure, however, that if they could just pass through, they’d end up one step closer to being alive again. And if they could get out there, maybe that meant there were other doorways, that went to other places. Oh. "Your dream god wants us to look," Ianto said, suddenly certain. George blinked at him, as though the thought hadn't occurred to him.

"I—would imagine he does, at that," George replied. "I hadn't thought of it. He said that he suspects you're the key, Master Jones." George's eyes glinted brightly. He'd taken to calling Ianto 'master,' as though in retaliation for Ianto's polite 'sir.' Ianto wasn't really sure how he felt about it, although there was clear amusement in the Baron's expression.

"That's helpful," Ianto muttered. "And you say Jack has a bargain of his own?"

"Yes," George said. That—probably wasn’t good, Ianto thought. Jack could get himself into all kinds of trouble. A bargain with a god sounded like something with a lot of clauses. Jack was rubbish at clauses.

"And you have no idea what Jack gains from that bargain?" Ianto asked. He already knew the answer, really – Jack kept his cards very close, and he was good at manipulation.

"I don't, actually," George said. Ianto nodded to himself.

"I'm not surprised," he said dryly. "Tell me, sir, what do _I_ gain from this bargain?"

"Dunno," George shrugged. "You said you want to help Jack."

"I'd say I'm loyal to him to the grave, but that would be awkward," Ianto muttered, too quiet for George to hear. Above him, Rikash snorted a little, although he said nothing. "But I _am_ loyal to him, dead or not,” he said, louder. “ _However_ ," he added, sensing a loophole, and a way out, "I would quite like to benefit, myself. You go back to your gods and tell them that Rikash and I want to be brought back to life. Because _this_ —" he waved his hand around to indicate the darkness, "it a shitty afterlife, if you'll pardon my language."

"I believe that you're not part of our gods' jurisdiction," George said slowly. “If you were, they would have brought you through. They can’t pass this door.” Ianto remembered that from the old woman, but he didn’t particularly care. She’d been able to wake him, and call him. He’d walked through a door, then. Surely, he could walk through again. Surely there was a loophole.

"Paperwork and rules: I can get around that," he replied. "I'm good at red tape. I also know my mythology. It's not your mythology, but I'm sure it's close. I am _willing_ to make this bargain—that's not something you get often."

"I am as well," Rikash agreed, after a beat, "Although I'm likely going to regret it. Anything to get out of here. Well, almost," he amended.

George nodded. "I'll tell Gainel," he said, "the next time I speak with him. Perhaps he can strike a bargain with you as well."

"Good. Is there anything else?"

"You know anything about containing weevils?" George asked and Ianto blinked in surprise.

"A lot, actually," he replied. "I know an overwhelming amount of information on the subject, in fact."

"Containing _what_?" Rikash asked. He peered down at Ianto.

"Weevils, don't worry about it," Ianto told him offhandedly. Rikash huffed at the dismissal. Ianto turned back to George. "You have them as well?"

"Daine—one of my traveling companions—just enlightened us," George sighed. "Apparently they follow your Jack."

Rikash made an odd sound above him, birdlike, almost twittering.

Ianto ignored him. A wisp of joy and sorrow trailed down his spine like smoke. What a stupid idea. As if Jack belonged to anyone.  It was a nice sentiment, though. _His_ Jack. "They follow _Jack_? Why?"

"According to Daine, they see that people around him die," George explained.

Oh, that was awful. "Not through his fault," he said, feeling defensive. That would break Jack, he thought. If Jack thought he brought death, it would destroy him, Ianto knew that much. Or, well, he thought he knew that much anyway. It was hard to tell with Jack.

"No," George agreed. "Apparently they don't see time the way we do."

Ianto's heart wrenched. "So they see everyone around him dying, of old age, and him staying the same, so they think that's the cause?" Oh, poor Jack, he thought, suddenly wanting badly to offer comfort to his very absent—whatever Jack was. They’d never actually labeled it, since Jack didn’t do labels. He’d been very unhappy with the word _couple_ , Ianto remembered with a small stab of pain. Regardless, the comforting certainly wasn't going to happen, he told himself viciously and banished the feeling. "How does—Daine, you said?—know this?"

"If they're animals, she can talk to them," Rikash informed Ianto grimly. Ianto looked up at him.

"She talks to animals," he said. God, this Tortall sounded either like a fairytale, or completely mad. Knowing Jack, it was probably completely mad. "Right, right, your world of magic."

"My world of magic," Rikash said. "She's a Godborn."

 _Godborn._ Ianto remembered that word, from when he was briefly brought back to life by that goddess. The dark haired man had gasped out—he'd said "Daine." Of course.

"This Daine of yours," he started slowly, looking at George in his faraway rectangle of light and then up at Rikash, "Curly hair? Pretty?"

"You know her?" George asked.

"Saw her, for a moment," Ianto said. "That means you're traveling with—that dark haired man, tall, and the short redhead. " And a _dragon_ , he wanted to add, but it felt foolish. Maybe it wasn’t a dragon. Maybe it was something else.

"The short redhead happens to be my wife," George was saying.

"Numair Salmalin and Sir Alanna of Pirate's Swoop and Olau," Rikash supplied. Ianto glanced up at him thoughtfully.

"Names," Ianto whispered, almost to himself. His gut told him there was something important here, some vital piece of information that he didn't have. "Names, names…”

That old woman, Ianto realized slowly. She’d woken him. She’d called his name, and beckoned him. He’d heard her, and he’d followed, and the darkness had dissolved into that strange meadow.

He knew to his marrow that he could not pass that way again. But she’d pulled him awake with his name.

“Baron,” he started to ask, but his voice echoed into darkness, because the doorway and George within it had suddenly vanished. He felt a moment of alarm, but Rikash hummed thoughtfully, apparently unfazed. That was normal, then? He supposed that George had disappeared suddenly last time, as well.

Right. He should just stop questioning, he thought wryly.

"Names," Rikash echoed, wings stroking air that was not, technically, there. "We used to use name spells on the dueling grounds during the full moon, sometimes. You were calling for Jack Harkness when I found you."

"How _did_ you find me?" Ianto asked, looking up at the Stormwing. He hadn't thought to ask, before.

"You were loud," Rikash said. "And I—" he banked a little to the left, and then to the right, giving the impression of shifting his feet uncomfortably. "I was— I could hear you calling and I thought, well, better someone than no one, and maybe you wanted to find the Realms of the Dead. You must admit, the darkness is more bearable when there's someone else."

"When there's someone else," Ianto echoed softly. "But I _looked_ for Lisa," he added, guilt sinking his stomach. "I couldn't find her. I couldn't find anyone."

"Lisa?" Rikash said.

"My girlfriend," Ianto replied quietly, full of regret. "Well. Ex-girlfriend, I suppose. She was—it was complicated." He looked down at his knees, conflicted.

 Rikash's wings whispered up and down in the silence, the slight clinking of his metal feathers bringing back horrible, horrible memories. The stench of burnt flesh, the sound of mechanical feet on the ground, marching. Lisa, screaming, the steel welded to her skin still hot as he dragged her out of the conversion unit. Ianto swallowed. He'd sneaked her into Torchwood, risking everything up to and including the future of the damned human race, to save her. He'd failed, of course. She'd been more Cyberman than human in the end; she'd murdered two people before Jack and the rest of the Torchwood team had finally killed her. He’d been devastated. He’d hated Jack, then.

But that had changed. He’d seen Jack for who he was, after. Dysfunctional, immortal Jack who kept such secrets, who lied through his teeth and even to the end hadn't really told Ianto anything about himself.

But behind closed doors the man had been gentle, soldier persona gone, replaced by sure hands and soft eyes. Jack hadn't said he loved Ianto, but there had been something there, Ianto was sure of it. Was it worth the chance? Or was he just another in a long line of Jack's conquests?

"You sound like you don't really want to find her," Rikash said, breaking Ianto from his grim doubts.

Ianto frowned guiltily. "I loved her," he said, torn.

"But you don't love her anymore, I take it," Rikash pointed out. He sounded bored. Ianto scowled viciously.

"When you love someone like that, you never stop," he snapped. He did love Lisa, of course he did, but—but _Jack_...

He remembered Jack's voice breaking, begging the Four-five-six for Ianto's life. He remembered the world gone hazy, a pain somewhere in his gut, and Jack catching him when he fell. He remembered Jack pleading with him not to leave as the world darkened, voice choked with tears. Ianto took a shaky breath.

"Sentimental humans," Rikash muttered, but there was no rancor in his voice. "Your Jack Harkness is alive. This Lisa of yours would bring up too much unfinished business, and neither of us wants to deal with that."

Ianto twisted around and up to glare up at the Stormwing. Rikash was waiting for him, looking down with his intelligent green eyes. Maybe Lisa needed help, too, Ianto thought angrily, suddenly cold. "Why? Are you offering transport?" he snapped, conflicted and hurting. "Do you like being a carrier pigeon?"

"You don't weigh anything, in case you've forgotten," Rikash reminded him. "We're both dead; none of this is real. If we can call someone, Ianto Jones, perhaps we can call this Guardian, and win our way back to the land of the living." After a moment Rikash added, "That sounds awfully heroic, doesn't it? My death was heroic, too." He wrinkled his nose, as though disgusted.

"Sounds like you're just as sentimental as us humans," Ianto growled, and then added defiantly, "The name thing might work. I’m calling Lisa."

"Well, that's a stupid idea if I ever heard one," said the Stormwing.

Stupid, Ianto agreed. Reckless. But he would hate himself if he didn't try.

"LISA!" he cried, as loudly as he could, feeling a little foolish.

Silence. A lot of silence, actually. It almost rang, and it felt—heavier, than before. Ianto shivered, which was completely absurd because he had no body.  He shouted again and then again, would have shouted himself hoarse if he had a throat to go hoarse, but Rikash eventually stopped him.

“Steel and claw, Ianto, this is obviously not working,” he snapped.

Ianto fell silent.

"So," Rikash said in the sudden ringing quiet, the absence of even Ianto’s voice, "that answers that question.” 

Ianto stared up at the Stormwing. He wanted to hit him. A lot. But there was no reason. He wanted to cry, but there were no tears. It didn’t really matter. It was only silence, and he couldn’t wake the dead.


	12. Chapter 11

“George!”

George snapped awake, yanked from the door, the meadow and the darkness. The transition was jarring, and he felt unsteady in his skin. His Sight was not very strong, in reality; he imagined that Gainel was helping quite a bit, to get him to that meadow. It made him feel groggy. The light hurt his eyes.  

_“What?”_ he snapped, surprised, disoriented, and not a little annoyed. Alanna, fully dressed, awake, and bearing her sword, was on one knee beside him, and he sighed at the sight of her, regretting his tone immediately. “What?” he asked again, gentler. It was morning. How had she woken before him?

“The weevils are awake,” she replied, stroking his shoulder apologetically, “and Daine thinks we can track down the other two. Were you dreaming?”

George smiled weakly up at her and leaned into her hand before sliding his eyes to the side. The weevils were indeed awake; he’d tied them to a tree the other day, with the bonds that would strangle them, if they struggled. He was gratified to see the creatures sitting sullenly on the roots, glaring.

George looked to the sky: it was late morning. He’d slept far past his wont: it must be to do with that strange meadow. He turned towards the firepit.

Jack was poking at the flames with a stick, sitting just a little too close to Daine. Numair strolled back to the fire with cheese and bread for breakfast. As George watched, Jack looked up and grinned at Numair with stars in his eyes. Kitten bounded at Numair’s heels, chirping and begging for the cheese. George had, indeed, slept late.

 “I need to speak with you,” he told Alanna lowly. She nodded gravely, recognizing his tone for something important. 

“You’ve Seen something,” Alanna said. George nodded.

“Does it have to do with the weevils?” she murmured, sitting at his side

“Yes and no,” George told her softly. “It’s to do with Jack, and his lad.”

Alanna blinked. “And Ianto?” she murmured. George kept a wary eye on Jack, who laughed at something Numair was saying.

“Yes. Later,” George said. Alanna nodded, and George dragged himself out of the bedroll.

He felt… terrible, actually. George’s Sight was not something he could overextend, generally; it mostly consisted of knowing a little more than he’d been told. Was this what magical exhaustion felt like?  He marveled for a moment at Numair, who he’d seen exhaust himself, who was still exhausted from the fiasco with the aliens. How did the man cope?  George dressed as best he could and then made his way over to the fire. 

Alanna greeted him with melted cheese on some fire-warmed bread. He ate it, feeling like something picked out of a horse’s shoe.

George chewed his breakfast and listened to the others talk. Jack was leaning on Numair’s shoulder, explaining something-or-other about his little box, far too fast for George to follow. The mage and the dragon were right with him, though. Numair interjected with questions as well as delight, and Jack practically glowed at the attention.

George finished his breakfast. Daine, looking amused, cleared everything away.

“I think I can find the other weevils,” she said, at last.

 “That’s probably a bad idea,” Jack replied, looking up from the small metal wire that was sticking out of the box. Kitten looked up as well. She didn’t make a sound, but George saw her eyes go wide, slit-pupil blue darting to her guardian in alarm.

Numair did not seem to have heard them. He hummed a little, lifting a tiny string of metal with a twig. “Jack, I think this one breaks the circuit—look, it’s damaged.”

Jack squinted back at the box. “Well,” he said, sounding surprised. “Look at that, it is. Good eye, Numair.”

“Right,” Alanna told them dryly. “I think that’s an excellent idea, Daine.” She stood. “You stay and fiddle. We’re going weevil-hunting.”

“You are not!” Jack shook himself, leaping away from the fascinated mage. “Not without me, anyway.” He brushed dirt off his clothes after he stood.

“Doing what?” Numair asked distractedly, looking up. George noticed with amusement that Numair was practically humming—he had a shiny new puzzle to work out. Mages, George thought with an internal chuckle. They’re like children. Give them a new toy, and the whole world disappears.

“Daine wants to go weevil hunting,” Jack repeated for the third time.  Daine looked amused.

“Daine wants to go— she wants to _what?_ ” Numair shot to his feet, the metal box forgotten. George saw Kitten snoop her nose into it, sniffing.

“Numair, honestly,” Daine told him, long suffering. “I can feel them. Mostly. I’ll be able to find them, anyway.”

“You’ll get hurt,” the mage said, a little helplessly, eyes darting from Daine to Alanna. “You’re not experienced with these creatures, and you could hardly hold them. They have demonstrated that they are vicious, and that they’ll turn on you, Daine.”

Daine shrugged. “I’ll learn,” she said. “Now that I know what to expect. You’re being ridiculous, Numair.” She wasn’t wrong, George thought, a little amused, though he was having the same misgivings. Alanna could more than take care of herself, likely better than George could take of himself in this setting, particularly since he was feeling so terrible, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. 

George also knew that not only did he need to talk to his wife, but also that someone had to guard the weevils they had already caught. His particular skillset was more suited to that, than to hunting.

Also, he was exhausted, and tramping about in the woods was not high on his list of pleasant activities at the moment. He didn’t stand.

“He’s not being ridiculous,” Jack said. “You haven’t worked with them before. I have. You’ll have better luck if I go with you,” Jack said.

Numair glared. “I’m coming as well.”

Jack spared him a glance, and then looked away, out into the woods. He didn’t argue. “The sooner we’ve got them out of the woods, the better,” he said.

Daine walked up to Numair and took his arm, though the mage looked far from comforted. “Me’n Alanna marked some maps. I think there are more weevils headed this way. They move quickly.” She turned to Jack. “Since they were following you, Jack, and we were tracking them, we ran into each other sooner than expected. There are more coming.”

“How many?” Jack asked softly, like he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. Poor lad, George thought.

“Thirty, forty, at a guess,” Daine replied.

Jack swallowed. “We can’t contain that many,” he said. “And your gods won’t be pleased.”

“No,” Daine agreed. “I was thinking that. If we figured out how they came to be here, we could send them back.”

“I thought you said they traveled by this rift,” Numair said. George looked up at Jack, slightly confused. Alanna had told him what they knew of Jack's past, with Jack’s blessing, but George was no scholar; talk of cracks and tears in time and space made his head hurt.

“Yes,” Jack said. “They do. I don’t think you _can_ send them back, Daine.”

“But it’s more than that,” Daine said and started to pace. “Because how did they find the rift in the first place? You said they weren’t from that planet, either.”

Jack frowned, thinking. “You’re right,” he said. “They’re not. You think they have some other way of traveling?”

Daine nodded. “And maybe we can send them back. But to do that I need to talk to them.”

Numair gestured to their two captives. “What about them?”

George watched Daine look over to the weevils. Their small eyes locked with hers, and two sets of lips curled as they growled lowly. They were perfectly in synchrony; it was eerie. She shook her head, breaking whatever connection she had.

“They’re hard to understand,” she said. “They talk in groups, all together, instead of one at a time. They keep insisting on some kind of light, but I don’t know what they’re talking about. Right now—it sounds like there’s parts missing. If we catch more, I might be able to understand them better.”

“Or,” Jack said slowly, “if they’re following me, maybe we should go deeper into the woods. Away from the city.”

George saw Daine glance back at the weevils, eyes a little distant as she listened to them. “If they get to the city, they’ll stop following you,” she murmured, far away.

“Because the city’s what they want,” Jack said. “Aside from me.” His voice was even and matter of fact, but George saw Daine reach out to pat his shoulder anyway.

“It isn’t you,” she told him. Jack leaned into the comfort. Poor man was smitten, George thought, a little amused. It was bizarre, because it was clearly with _both_ mages, but that didn’t make it less true. “But I don’t think we could stop them, and a day’s ride, especially at the slow rate we’ll have to go—” she nodded to the two captives, “won’t really make a difference."

“She’s right,” George said. “But if you work on that holding cell, mayhap we could contain them. If you don’t finish it though…”

“We’ll have to kill them,” Alanna finished when his voice faded.

George nodded at her. At Daine’s stricken look, he added, “We won’t have a choice, lass. Do you really think we can contain forty of these things? Feed them, water them? They’ll kill if they’re allowed to roam the streets.”

“They can’t help what they are,” Daine said quietly.

“And we can’t help what _we_ are,” Jack insisted. “Numair and I will work on the receptacle. But first we should get those other two out there.” He nodded to the woods. “Weevils are nocturnal, mostly. If we get them while it’s still day, we might startle them.”

Daine sighed. “We might. Do we have enough rope?”

“For two more? Yes,” George said.

“Who stays behind to guard them?” Alanna asked, jerking her head to the captives.

"I'll stay," George said. He’d already decided, and he didn’t think he could tromp around the woods, feeling like this, anyway. If the worst should happen, he had some throwing knives on him to at least slow any escaping weevils. Jack nodded at him.

“Well, there’re at least two out there,” Jack said. “So I’m going to need one other person—preferably Daine, because she can find them. Then I’m going to need a mage to stun them.”

Alanna and Numair looked at each other. Numair practically quivered with wanting to go. “Go on,” Alanna said. “I’ll stay with George.”

Numair nodded. “Alright.” He stretched a little, cracking his back. “I’ve been sitting too long, anyway.” He spared a glance to Daine. “The footing seems a little precarious for horses,” he said.

“You’re right,” Daine said, smiling at him. “We’ll have to go on foot.” She grabbed her bow. “Kit?’ she asked. “Stay or go?”

The little dragon turned pink and shook her head emphatically, scampering over to crouch beside Alanna. George blinked at her. Pink was an odd color for Kit to turn - it meant she was afraid. He hadn't seen the little one afraid often, and from the looks of it, Daine hadn't either.

“Alright,” Daine said, little bemused. “That’s probably better anyway.” Kit chattered at her, peering around Alanna's legs.

Jack looked at the dragon keenly. “You don’t like aliens, do you?” he asked.

George didn’t particularly like aliens either, but now that Jack had said it, he wondered. How was that, then? Sure enough, Kit shook her head, peeping like a baby bird.

“That’s odd,” Numair said. “But you still like Jack.”

The dragon trilled, nodding.

“We’re having this discussion later,” Jack said. He turned to Daine. “Lead on,” he said and gestured grandly. Daine chuckled at him and took Numair’s hand, squeezing it once before letting it drop.

“You’ll have to take the wards down,” Numair told Alanna.

“I keyed them so you can find them,” Alanna assured him, and the mage nodded.

“All right,” he said and gestured for Daine to lead the way. Jack came up beside him, just a little too close—smitten, George thought—and the two of them followed Daine into the woods.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Alanna walked over and sat beside George.

“You look terrible,” she said flatly. “What happened?”

George rubbed is forehead. Alanna inched closer, and he leaned on her.

“Well?” she asked.

“I had two very interesting conversations with a certain Ianto Jones,” he told her lowly, and Alanna’s eyes widened. Kitten stood up straight, staring at him.

“So you said,” she said, sounding alarmed. “How?”

George sighed. “I made a bargain with Gainel.”

Alanna scowled. “I’m starting to get tired of all these bargains,” she said. George chuckled.

“Me too. He tells me I’m the best for this job, because I have the Sight.” He sighed again. He really felt terrible. “I think it’s exhausting me, though.”

Alanna rubbed his back, concerned. “How so?”

“When I sleep,” George told her, “Gainel brings me to a—it looks like a meadow. And there’s a door in the middle. I mustn’t go through the door, but I can look, and I can talk. If I open the door there’s this—darkness, like a pit or a cave. That’s where Jack’s lad is, in that darkness.”

“That’s terrible,” Alanna said.

“Aye, it is. But he’s clever. Somehow, he’s found Rikash Moonsword—Daine’s Stormwing friend, remember? He’s fashioned some kind of rope, and they’re flying through the darkness together. If I sit near the door, I can talk to them. Gainel thinks that they’re the key to this Gate, somehow.”

Kitten abruptly squealed and raced over to George, chattering excitedly. He smiled and let her crawl into his lap.

“That’s—quite a lot of information,” Alanna murmured thoughtfully, although she was smiling a little from Kitten’s antics. “So you told him—Ianto, I mean—about what we’re doing.”

“The weevils and the Guardian, yes. I don’t know how they can help us, but he wants me to bargain with Gainel for him.”

Alanna frowned at him, concerned. “Necromancy isn’t exactly the best of magics, George,” she said uneasily. “You remember Roger.”

“No, it isn’t,” George agreed and he held Alanna’s eyes, sharing her unease. “That door is terrifying, if I want to be honest. But Gainel sanctions it, so I think we’re stuck with it. He’s sharp, Jack’s Ianto. He’s _very_ sharp. I think he can help, although I don’t have the slightest clue how. All I know is that it would likely be a bad idea to outright tell Jack without a plan.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully and Alanna winced.

“At least for the moment, especially after this business with the weevils,” she agreed, and Kitten whistled sadly. “We should tell him soon, though. How did Ianto die?”

“Not a clue. I’ll ask him, next time I See him,” George replied wryly.

“It isn’t really my business,” Alanna muttered, shaking her head. She picked up a stick to poke at the embers. Then she rolled her eyes. “Look at us, gossiping like old birds.”

“Thought you hated gossip,” George drawled playfully, slinging an arm around her. The dragon, which he held with his other arm, chirped, and he let her go. She scampered off, returning a moment later with her own stick, with which she poked the fire.

“I do,” Alanna said, leaning into his shoulder. “This is completely ridiculous.”

“He’s hung up on something, but we don’t know what,” George murmured. He smiled down at her. “If that’s not something to gossip about, I don’t know what is.”

“It isn’t our business,” Alanna repeated, shaking her head. “You said Ianto was with a _Stormwing_?” She twisted around to look up at him.

“Rikash,” George nodded. “Daine’s friend.” Kitten whistled, apparently remembering him.

“He died in the Immortal’s War,” Alanna said slowly. “What does he want?”

“The same thing Jones does. He wants to—”

“Come back to life,” Alanna finished with him. “How can they help us?”

“Not a clue,” George said ruefully. “Still, every little bit helps, even if they’re stuck between realms…” he paused.

“Between realms?” Alanna asked.

“I reckon there’s no place in the Realms of the Dead for a Stormwing, but I don’t know why Ianto’s there,” George replied. “They might be lost.”

“Between realms,” Alanna repeated thoughtfully.

There was a silence. George looked down at Alanna's red hair, waiting patiently for her to finish her thought. She clearly believed that to be significant, but he couldn't imagine what that awful darkness had to do with anything.

“If I wanted to imprison a god,” his Lioness said slowly, after a moment, “I think that’d be a pretty good place to hide him, don’t you?”

Kitten, now sitting in front of the fire, turned back to look at Alanna with wide eyes. George watched her as well, remembering Ianto’s words.

_Your gods want us to look, too,_ he had said. Of course, of _course_. Even still, George doubted that the gods of this world had access to the realms between worlds.

“And if not,” he replied, thinking aloud and following her train of thought, quietly impressed, as always, by her logic, “Between realms means you might have access to other realms. If the Guardian of the Gates is not in the Mortal Realms, perhaps Ianto and Rikash have a better chance of finding him than we do. I’ll have to tell them.”

“You need to speak to Gainel, too,” Alanna said. Then she tilted her head to one side. “What did you bargain for, anyway?”

“None o’ your business,” George answered gruffly. Alanna raised her eyebrows.

“I think it’s plenty my business, laddybuck,” she said, watching his face redden. She knew him too well, gods curse her, George thought. There was no way he could refuse Alanna anything, and she knew it. He was stuck. He scowled at her.

“You get seasick,” he muttered. “I traded him for three weeks of restful nights.”

“George!” Alanna cried, but he could see a flush work its way around her cheeks. “That was a silly thing to bargain for!”

“It was no such thing,” George insisted, drawing her closer. “A few nights rest, when you don’t feel well? That’s priceless, that is.”

She scowled but relaxed against him, letting him hold her. “It was pretty stupid,” she muttered again. He squeezed her, disagreeing. She tried to draw away with a scowl, but he would not let her. She let him win, and leaned back again.

“You should talk to Gainel,” she murmured.

George let out a reluctant breath. “Aye, that I should.” He rested his chin on her shoulder, leaning close to brush his lips against her neck.

Kitten snorted in disgust and went to go play by the fire. George smiled down at the little dragon and held his Lioness close for a moment longer.


	13. Chapter 12

Jack held a dead rabbit by the feet as they crashed back toward camp. Numair was floating two stunned weevils behind him and Daine was insisting on something so unlikely as to be ludicrous.

“But that’s impossible,” Jack told her for the second time, “you can’t just slip between dimensions without a device!” You could do it without a vessel of course, but you needed _something_. 

“I don’t know, Jack,” she replied, “That’s what it feels like they’re saying. They’re hard to understand!”

Jack heard a delighted squeal: Kitten bounded over to Daine and then Jack, chattering excitedly. She stood up and placed her claws on Jack’s thighs, babbling at him.

“Yes, hello to you too, Kit,” Numair muttered sourly behind them. Jack looked over at him, concerned.

Numair’s face was gray and his breathing heavy. It seemed that he was still not fully recovered from the fiasco with the Nepthalae, and keeping the weevils afloat was taxing. Oh god. Jack immediately felt terrible. Numair had seemed fine before. Jack really had to get a handle on the limits of this Gift thing.

“Oh—Numair—” he started.  Kitten dropped back to all fours.

 “Still tired and floating weevils?” Alanna broke in as she rose to greet them, and purple fire flowed from her hand, supporting the unconscious aliens. “I can take it from here.” She bent down and grasped a rope, beginning to tie them. The conscious ones watched with malevolent eyes, sitting harmlessly on their tree root.

Kitten, looking chastised, whistled at Numair, who sighed.

“I’m sorry,” the mage told her. When Alanna took the weevils, he knelt to one knee and held out a hand to the dragon. “I suppose I _am_ still tired.” Kitten sniffed his fingers and then snuggled up to him. Jack thought his damned heart would melt.

He needed a distraction. Jack looked across camp: George was sitting cross-legged, eyes closed, breathing slowly.  “What’s George doing?” Jack asked.

“Meditating,” Alanna told him. There was a careful edge in her voice that made Jack immediately wary. Was she lying? No. It was fairly obvious that George actually was meditating. He didn’t seem the type. “He has a bargain with Gainel, the dream god.”

Jack’s felt his fingers tighten around the legs of the dead rabbit. On the one hand, Gainel had stolen Ianto’s face, but on the other, he’d given him Owen. Jack wasn’t so sure how he felt about that particular god. “Gainel. What’s the bargain?”

Kitten cheeped and clutched at Jack’s breeches. Jack looked down at her, and the dragon shook her head.

“This isn’t the best time to tell you,” Alanna told him, but her eyes were compassionate. “We’ll explain later, when we have all the details. It has to do with the Guardian.”

“Oh-kay…” Jack replied slowly. “We’ll deal with the weevils, then, if it’s not urgent.”

Alanna sighed and shook her head. “It isn’t quite urgent, not yet.” She glanced at Daine and Numair. Jack followed her gaze, but his two friends looked just as puzzled as he was. 

Jack opened his mouth to comment but he was interrupted. Red had walked over and pushed a gray nose into the back of Jack’s shoulder. Jack blinked and looked up at the gelding. “Yes?” he asked.

“He wants to make sure you’re alright,” Daine supplied. Then she quirked a grin. “He also says that you smell like blood and gunpowder, and what Alanna’s talking about is very good, and they will tell you soon.”

“Tell him that the blood and gunpowder comes from hunting weevils,” Jack said dryly, carefully taking off his coat, still in perfect condition thanks to the preservative spells, never mind the bloody truth spell.

Well. The truth spell had its uses, he thought, glancing fondly at Numair, who had sat down by the fire, apparently exhausted.

 They were quite upfront about keeping things from him, which was odd. It was kind of nice, though. He found himself trusting Alanna’s judgment. Besides, it was better to hear the whole story than half of it. Still, it rankled a little, a strange game of I-know-something-you-don’t. Jack handed the rabbit to Alanna and moved toward the brook nearby camp to wash and change his clothes. The Tortallans waved as he walked off and Red, of course, followed him.

“You’re ridiculous, you know that?” Jack said as he followed the noise of rushing water. “Honestly, I’m fine.”

The horse regarded him with one skeptical brown eye.

“The weevils bring back memories, that’s all,” Jack mumbled, and then stripped his dirty clothes off before tip-toeing into the cold brook. He grimaced at the temperature, and Red snorted behind him.

Jack stepped fully into the rushing water, surprised at its depth. He ducked his head under to rinse the blood from his neck, where one of the two weevils had bitten him, although the wound had already healed.

When he resurfaced, shivering, he saw Red giving him a doubtful look. “Good memories,” Jack amended with a sigh. “But I really don’t want to think about them. Okay? Look, I’m in one piece.” He patted down his chest comically. “I think.”

Red glared at him.

“What?” Jack asked. Red’s ears pricked forward then, and he got a mischievous look about him. “Whatever you’re thinking of—” Jack warned, but too late; the horse had gripped his stained and bloodied shirt in his mouth and tossed it into the brook, to be followed by his breeches. “Hey!” Jack lunged after his clothing. “It’s not too late to sell you, you know!” he said, but Red whinnied at him merrily and Jack found himself laughing as well, the tension from the secrets of his friends briefly forgotten.


	14. Chapter 13

Jack’s laughter floated down from the brook. Daine glanced in the direction of the stream, unable to stop the small smile at the sound. It was good to hear Jack laugh.

He worries too much, Red told her from the distance. He is too tense. I think it is time he should laugh, don’t you? And his clothing smells.

Daine chuckled.

“What is it?” Numair asked. He’d sat by the fire and all but slumped.  

“Red has a sense of humor, that’s all,” she replied, and went to sit by him. He was warm and tired, and he leaned into her drowsily.

Red is sentimental, Cloud muttered, coming up behind them, close enough to huff a breath on Daine’s hair.

That’s not a bad thing, Daine said.

No, Cloud agreed, It’s not. But he’s buying you time: ask Alanna about George’s bargain. The pony nudged Daine’s shoulder. Go on.

Daine sighed. The horses had been around her too long; they were thinking like two-leggers, planning and scheming.

“Alanna—” she started, looking back at her friend.

Alanna was skinning the rabbit, quickly and efficiently. Daine averted her eyes from the mess. Just because she couldn’t eat it didn’t mean that she would prevent everyone she loved from enjoying meat; as Jack had said, they couldn’t help what they were, even if it did make her a little queasy.

 “George made a bargain with Gainel,” Alanna said. “I think you should know what it is.” She set the rabbit down and looked at them seriously.

“Why won’t you tell Jack?” Numair asked quietly from Daine’s side.

“Because he’s Seen Jack’s Ianto,” Alanna said, matter of fact.

Daine’s breath caught. She remembered Jack shouting furiously to Gainel, and Jack’s rage and sorrow when the Graveyard Hag had tried to use Ianto as a pawn. Ianto Jones was one of the things that pained Jack terribly, and if Gainel had made a bargain concerning him, Jack’s heart was liable to get trampled in the process.

“What’s the bargain?” Daine asked, a little sharp on behalf of her friend.

“Apparently, Gainel thinks that Ianto will be able to help us find the Guardian,” Alanna replied. “Ianto’s met up with—well, he’s met up with your Stormwing, Daine. Rikash.”

Daine blinked. A strange numb feeling washed through her. Rikash had died only recently, after all. “He was never mine,” she muttered, eyes dropping, and Numair laid a supportive hand on her shoulder.

“He was a good friend,” he said. “Shouldn’t they be in the Realms of the Dead?”

“The Realms of the Dead have no place for an Immortal,” George croaked, and they all looked at him. He cleared his throat, stretching out his legs, which had been crossed as he meditated.  He looked exhausted. “And Jack’s world has no realms for their dead at all. They’re both between realms. It’s just darkness.” He shivered a little. Alanna went over to him.

“Are you alright?” She crouched next to him and curled an arm affectionately around his shoulder. George offered her a brief smile.

“That’s—horrible,” Daine said. Numair brought a water skin over and offered it to George, who drank appreciatively.

“How can a dead man and a Stormwing help us find the Guardian?” Numair asked, quiet and practical. Jack’s laughter echoed from the stream as he scolded Red for something.

“They’re nowhere,” George said. “The spaces between realms.”

“If I were going to hide a god,” Alanna put in, “I would hide him there.”

Daine and Numair glanced at each other. “We have to tell Jack,” Daine said flatly. “We can’t keep something like this from him.”

“I know,” Alanna told her. “I don’t plan to. But I wasn’t going to give him half the story, especially for something this important – George still had to work out his bargain with Gainel.”

“Gainel said he wants to take care of it,” George said grimly. He leaned into Alanna, face gray and tired “He’s got a contact.”

“What?” Numair asked, but Daine knew what he was talking about.

“Owen Harper,” she said. “He visits Jack in his dreams. Is that really wise?”

George nodded. “Aye, that’s the one. His Worship says that Jack’d trust that man far more than any of us, dead or not. How did you come to know about it, lass?”

“After the Nepthalae,” Daine muttered, eyes dropping. “I found out.”

“I don’t really like that, George,” Alanna said. “Jack might like it better coming from us.”

“Rogue though I may be,” George replied darkly, “I’d rather not argue directly with the plans of gods.”

Daine, Red warned, just as they heard Jack crashing through the trees.

“Daine, you tell Red that he is a pain in the ass!” he said merrily, wearing a clean pair of breeches, but carrying the old pair as well as a sodden shirt on his arm. He was not wearing a tunic, brazenly bare-chested. Daine loved Numair with all her heart, but Jack was a very attractive man, particularly without a tunic. She just barely stopped herself from gaping. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Numair flush. 

And you tell Jack that I am not a donkey, Red told her, eyes twinkling. Daine laughed, her unease from the previous conversation starting to drain.

“Red says that he’s not a donkey,” she translated, and Jack chuckled.

“He would,” her friend said, slapping the horse’s neck. “Brook’s free; it’s your turn.” Jack’s blue eyes landed on the half-skinned carcass that Daine was very carefully not looking at. “Has anyone skinned my rabbit, or do I have to do that _again_?” he added, exasperated but good humored. It jarred a little; Daine hid a small sigh, feeling guilty for keeping secrets.

“I’ll do it,” Alanna replied easily, picking up where she had left off. “Numair, you smell of dirt.”

The mage huffed and stood. He arched an eyebrow to Daine before striding with purpose to the trees. Daine chuckled and followed him. “It’s hardly your fault,” she teased, catching up to him. Numair regarded her with gleaming eyes as they stepped out onto the rocks around the brook.

“No, I rather think it’s yours,” he said, arms curling around her waist. Daine grinned and leaned against him, enjoying the wicked glee in his eyes. His arms tightened around her and just when she thought he’d kiss her, he swung her around and she shrieked with surprise. Numair laughed brightly, kissed her nose and then dumped her unceremoniously intro the brook, clothes and all.  

\---

_\--Owen Harper.—_

“What can I do for you, m’lord?” Owen’s voice was wry.  He leaned casually against the autopsy table.

Torchwood Three was not just Jack’s dream world. Owen preferred it himself, although his afterlife was spent in the Realms of the Dead, which turned out to be a rather nice place. There was a little city, but it wasn’t like a living city. It was more dreamlike and indistinct. Time moved differently there; it wasn’t a heart’s desire, really, but it felt like sleep, and the sort of dreams that came with sleep. It felt like peace.  Owen didn’t quite fit there – it felt a little like being drugged, but then, they had warned him. He wasn’t really dead, after all. But it certainly beat the darkness, though anything beat the darkness when you got right down to it.

Even still, whenever Gainel came to tell him something, Owen found himself here or at his desk behind the medical room.

He walked around the autopsy table, looking up at the god. Gainel looked extremely out of place in the rag-tag, stained Torchwood autopsy bay, there on the stairs with his dark eyes, shoulders shrouded in a dark coat. He looked every inch a god, standing on the stairwell.

 _\--I found Ianto Jones.—_ It took a second for the words to sink in, but when they did Owen fought the brief surge of surprise and, embarrassingly enough, delight.

His relationship with Ianto had been an odd one, because they’d mostly hated each other. Yet they’d had a sort of kinship, in a weird, ill-tempered way, and Owen had been saddened when Gainel had told him of Ianto’s demise.

“That’s nice,” Owen replied, crushing the strange joy he felt into a fine powder before metaphorically smoking it. “Shall I tell Jack, then?” Lover boy would be absolutely delighted, he thought wryly, and then a terrifying thought occurred to him. He paused. “You’re not going to send me back into the darkness, are you?”

Gainel walked down the stairs. He chuckled gently, and reached out to touch Owen’s chin. Owen scowled and jerked away. Bloody weird gods did _not_ belong in his personal space, thank you very much!

 _\--No. I bargained with_ you _, little spitfire.—_

“I keep telling you not to call me that,” Owen muttered, but Gainel only laughed. Owen had learned by now that it was useless to argue with him. You couldn’t win an argument with the bloody Dream King. It got very surreal very quickly and it just wasn’t worth it; Owen didn’t need the acid trip.

“Right, okay, so what do you want me to do?” he asked. This whole servile thing wasn’t for him, not really, but choices were choices, and the afterlife in Tortall was much, much more pleasant than the afterlife at home. Besides, while Gainel was bizarre, the Black God was kindly, and deeply comforting. All he wanted from Owen was stories, and Owen had those in spades.

 _\--Ianto Jones exists out of my jurisdiction,--_ Gainel explained. _–I cannot go where he is. You, however, can. I need you to speak with him.—_

Owen felt another flash of fear. “Into the darkness?” he whispered and then his voice rose indignantly. “You just said you weren’t going to send me there!”

 _\--I will not send you there,--_ Gainel said softly. _–There is a hole in our realm that goes there: I have been sending the mortal George Cooper there as a contact, but I fear it is exhausting him. I believe you will have better luck.—_

“What, so it’s like—a doorway?” Owen asked _._

_\--Yes. They must not pass through the threshold; the Hag called Ianto Jones through by some other means, and he cannot pass that way twice. Do not pass the threshold yourself, spitfire, or you will be lost. Stay on the outside. —_

“Don’t need to tell me twice,” he muttered. Gainel smiled.

_\-- It is possible that I can enable them to stride through dreams, but I need more information first. I believe that you will sense if they can dream stride. Like calls to like; if they can, you should know immediately. I, however, would not, and nor would the mortal George Cooper.—_

Owen shrugged. “Yeah, alright. I’ll give it a look.”

Gainel smiled again. He gestured.

The med bay and the autopsy table and Torchwood Three melted away like hot wax. Owen stood in a field, and mist rose around his ankles. The sky overhead was an overcast, dark gray.

Before him was a great wooden door, standing incongruously like a monolith. It had no lintel, but it did have a knob.

Owen looked around, but there was no Gainel. Steeling himself, he pulled on the knob, and the door, without hinges, swung open. 

Beyond, the darkness was as complete and yawning as Owen remembered it. He shuddered. The mist around his ankles flowed past him and through the door, creating a hazy of fog around the other side. Owen swallowed and stood well back.

“Bloody unhelpful gods,” he muttered, and then took a breath. Gainel had given him the ability to do a kind of weird name trick when he’d taught him the dream striding thing. Owen could call for Jack, and Jack, if he was sleeping or otherwise receptive, would hear him and answer, generally without realizing it. Presumably the same thing worked for Ianto, even if it was the dead space and not a dream.

Worth a try, anyway.

“Ianto!” Owen shouted into the darkness. “Ianto Jones! _Ianto!_ ”

\---

“My son.” The voice was feminine and smooth, somehow the essence of light and heat. “Your Father is very ill.”

Mithros, God of Sun and Shield, stood in soft darkness. It was not the dark of the dead space; instead it twinkled with distant stars. “Mother?” he asked, sounding surprised.

“Your Father’s Guardian, as you know, has gone missing. You remember how urgently I spoke to you about getting him back.” The stars twinkled brightly, but they flared with rage. Mithros, God of Sun and Shield, was not one to feel fear – but his mother was not to be trifled with.

“We are doing all we can, Mother,” he said respectfully. “The immortal Jack Harkness--”

“Who jars upon my very senses,” Mother Flame snapped. “The Bad Wolf scalds your Father in his defense. She broke the barrier so that _man_ could come in, Time only knows why. Your Father and I cannot touch him.”

“And so he may cross into any realm but that of the dead,” Mithros explained patiently. “Realms of Dream and Chaos and even Divine open before him. He cannot be killed. He comes from beyond Father Universe; he knows of things that we can barely dream of. He can close the gap, Mother. He helped create it, after all.”

“He does not destroy those that you tell him to destroy,” Mother Flame said, voice low, almost a snarl. “And his defender harms us all.”

Mithros sighed. “He is unruly. My brother Mynoss still believes that he will listen.”

“Father Universe grows weak.”

 “But the stain is very small,” he said. “Only one kind, no more than forty—”

“And do you not wonder how those forty got here?” came the sharp response. “Each move they make tears into him more, and your sister, my son, takes advantage!”

“Uusoae,” Mithros growled. “You imprisoned her in a cage of dead matter and star fire until the next star is born, for her interference in the mortal world,” he reminded her.

“Indeed. But she is most disrespectful, as is her nature. She has taken advantage of her father’s illness; I fear that cage may not hold. She will be punished most harshly if she leaves her own realms, of course. I wish you to be vigilant for her, my son.”

Mithros nodded. “I will tell my brothers and sisters so. Is there anything else we can do for Father?”

“No. The Lone Wolf must do his duty, or he will not be accepted here.”

Mithros bowed to his mother. “We will goad him, Mother, as best we can.”


	15. Chapter 14

They flew through the darkness, for lack of anything better to do. It was endless, but they continued on, followed by their two globes of useless light. There was nothing to see, after all.  George and the door had not returned.

Guilt about Lisa nagged at him. Ianto pushed it away as best he could, worrying at the bungee cable, tugging at the fibers until some of them tore. Jack needed him, he told himself. Jack needed him, and Lisa was gone. Jack was alive and hurting, and Ianto could help him, if he could just get out of here.

His light globe had dimmed considerably. From the corner of his eye, he saw Rikash glance down at him in concern. He was almost touched. Hell, but Rikash did stink. 

“Did you hear that?” the Stormwing asked abruptly.

“Hear what?” Ianto replied, shaking off his black thoughts. His globe brightened a little.

“I think someone said your name,” Rikash said. He craned his neck and rustled his feathers so they clinked against each other. It was not a sound Ianto particularly enjoyed.

“That doesn’t make any sense at all,” Ianto said, annoyed.

Rikash dipped on a wingtip and turned a slow circle. There was, of course, nothing to see, Ianto thought with some exasperation. He looked anyway. 

And then, suddenly, there was a sound.

_“Ianto! You bloody idiot, I know you’re around here somewhere!”_

Well. There was that, he supposed.

“I know that voice…” Ianto murmured. His light brightened further, as if that would make any difference at all in the endless dark.  Rikash glanced at him again in confusion.

What the hell even _was_ the darkness, Ianto wondered crossly. Was it big, was it small? Was it endless? Infinite? Or the size of a pea? Did this place even _have_ distance? Where were they flying to, anyway?  Where had they flown _from_? Was the voice far? What even was _far_ here?

 _“Ianto!”_ There it was again. He definitely knew that voice. It made him feel… irritable.

“There!” said Rikash. He flapped and—something odd. The powerful downstroke of his wings brushed cool air against Ianto’s cheeks, like he was alive, like they were in a real place. Ianto looked around.

At a distance, another rectangle of light had opened, and something was spilling through. It looked like fog. Without being told, Rikash flew towards it, as he had before, with George. But this time—this time—

This time they gained on it. It got bigger, and loomed larger. Just beyond, like he was standing over a threshold stood—

Oh. That was why he was irritable.

Owen Harper was silhouetted in a rectangle of light. Fog, or mist or something, was pooling around him, sneaking along the edges of the rectangle, and dropping into the nothing like a waterfall. He made a sound of disgust when they approached. “What _reeks_?” he demanded.

Rikash gained on the little rectangle. As they got closer Ianto realized: it looked like a doorway. And in that doorway stood Owen. 

He suppressed a grin. Owen looked as he always had: a git clad in dark leather with his arms crossed, a scowl permanently drawn on his smooth face. He couldn’t believe he was actually glad to see _Owen_ , of all people, but he definitely was. Now that was a truly sorry state of affairs. 

“That would be Rikash,” Ianto said dryly, concealing his sudden, unexpected delight. The Stormwing glared down at him.

 “It’s a good thing we’re all dead, so I can’t bloody _kill_ you,” Owen snapped.

“Hello to you too,” Ianto said. They were actually quite close to the rectangle of light. Ianto could see beyond it: Owen was standing on grass, in what looked like a meadow. The mist whispered over the threshold. Ianto could almost feel it on his face. “What are you doing here?”

 “You made a bargain with Gainel,” Owen said, scowling. “Relayed through George Cooper.”

That was not at all what Ianto was expecting. Then again, he hadn’t exactly expected a doorway to open up in the middle of nothing, or even a giant metal stinking harpy to show up with pretty globe lights. It was probably best to stop while he was behind, he thought.

But actually—a _doorway_ —

 “And somehow that got around to _you_?” Ianto asked incredulously. “What do you have to do with any of this?” Rikash flew closer. In the back of his mind, Ianto wondered if they could just fly through.

Owen rolled his eyes. “Jack landed himself on apparently the most bizarre world he could find. Gainel tried to talk to him, but lover boy apparently refused,” he said. Ianto glared. “So he went and found me to act as messenger pigeon.”

“You’re not in his jurisdiction,” Ianto accused. He remembered the old woman, and her irresistible voice, calling him awake. How she thought she had power over him, and how Ianto knew down to his very dead bones that that was not the case.  

“Actually, I am,” Owen said smugly. They were close enough to the door that Rikash stopped going forward and hovered, just beyond the light of it. His wings stirred up the mist, and it whispered against Ianto’s cheeks, like a kiss. It felt—alive. It felt heavenly. 

They could definitely fly through that door, Ianto thought. Rikash had backed away from it a little, as though afraid. The mist against Ianto’s cheek dissipated, and he missed it.

“You are?” Ianto asked.

Owen smirked humorlessly. “I didn’t die of the radiation,” he said. “My body disintegrated, but I was still there.”

Ianto exhaled sharply, staring at Owen in wide-eyed sympathy. He didn’t like Owen, but that wasn’t a fate he’d wish on anyone. “That’s terrible,” he said quietly.

Owen scoffed. “Yeah, actually, it was.”

“So?” Rikash said, sounding bored.

“ _So,_ ” Owen continued, glaring again, “I wasn’t really alive and I wasn’t really dead. I was—the stuff of dreams.” That was clearly a quote from someone else. “So when Jack got pissy with Gainel, Gainel found me, and asked me to be a sort of go-between, in exchange for access to the Realms of the Dead in that weird world of his.” Owen shrugged. “I walk through dreams. It beats the darkness.”

“Anything beats the darkness,” Rikash added, hunching a little on himself. Ianto swallowed and resolutely didn’t think about it.

 “And you’ve been—talking to Jack?” Ianto said quietly. Hope rose sharply in him. “How is he? What’s happening?”

“He’s a bloody wreck, actually,” Owen said. “Real messed up. The Baron told you about the pocket universe, yeah?” Owen added.

Jack was—a wreck? “What do you mean, he’s a wreck?” Ianto asked anxiously.

“I mean he’s a goddamned mess, what do you think I mean?” Owen snapped. “I’ve been in his head. He’s—not okay.”

Ianto caught his non-existent breath, but Owen talked over him before he could say anything. “There’s gods there, the place where Jack is,” he said, “and a lot of them aren’t happy with him.”

“That old woman,” Ianto growled, remembering her indignant power when he’d spoken back to her, and when Jack had refused that bargain.

“The Graveyard Hag,” Owen supplied and Ianto filed the name away. “Right old beast, isn’t she? She does the whole back-from-the-dead thing. Mithros isn’t pleased either.”

The name didn’t mean much to Ianto, but Rikash winced. “That won’t be pleasant,” the Stormwing said darkly.

“No,” Owen agreed quietly, “It won’t. Anyway, there’s a plan.”

“A plan? Really?” Ianto asked. “We never have a plan.”

“Shut up, Jones.”

Ianto scowled at him. 

 “ _Right,_ okay, why don’t we share the plan instead of—whatever it is you’re doing, wasting time?” Rikash asked, ruffling his feathers so they clicked and clinked. Owen glared.

“And I’m supposed to believe you’re going to help?” he snapped. “You’re a bloody _Stormwing,_ ” he said. “Don’t think I don’t know what that is. Gainel _explained_ what you are. I ought to leave you here to rot!”

Ianto looked up and saw Rikash pale. Loyalty swelled in his heart. Rikash was a pain in the arse, but he’d found Ianto. He was shit company, and he smelled like a twelve-day-old fox carcass, but he was company, and he was Ianto’s bloody friend. Ianto sucked in a breath defensively. “Owen,” he warned.

“You don’t know what he is,” Owen bit back, pointing an accusing finger. “They live on battlefields, Stormwings. When the war’s done, they go and play with the bodies, like vultures.”

That… was news. Ianto looked back at Rikash, a little alarmed. He ate dead people? Or—well—dead bodies, anyway. Ianto resembled a dead body.

Rikash shrugged, feathers clicking. “Can I help what I am?” he asked, apparently neither offended nor alarmed. “I can no more stop feeding on fear than you can stop breathing the air. Well,” and here he scowled, baring sharp silver teeth. “If we were alive, anyway.”

That—was a little concerning, actually. Ianto frowned at him.

“Why don’t we concentrate on getting out of here,” Rikash added, “and then worry about everything else later.”

That was sensible, Ianto thought, and Owen seemed to agree. “Right. Okay. Gainel sent me here to see if you can also do the dream thing,” he said. “Apparently I would know when I looked at you, and I’m looking at you, and I’m thinking no. So. I have to go back to him and tell him.” He gestured to the darkness, “He can’t talk to you here and, frankly, I don’t want to either.” Owen rubbed his arms and leaned back a little, away from the threshold. “Gives me the willies, this place.”

Thanks, Owen, Ianto thought wryly, but he refrained from commenting.

“So I’m going to go tell him, yeah?”

“No.”

Ianto looked up when Rikash spoke. He was on the same page, actually: like hell was Owen going to just close the door on them. 

“I’m sorry, _no?_ ” asked Owen.

“No. You’re going to get out of the way,” Ianto said, measured, “and we’re flying through.” Above, Rikash flexed his talons on the bungee cable.

“Listen, mate,” Owen said, “I’ve been told that you can’t do that.” He backed up.

“Don’t care.” Ianto tugged on the bungee cable. Rikash took the hint, and swept his wings forward.

“No—Ianto—!” Owen lunged to close the door, but too late. Rikash dived like an eagle, like a peregrine falcon, and he was far too fast.

Ianto got a brief flash of a field and a misty meadow, and then everything went _white._

_\---_

 “Jack.”

Jack blinked in the harsh sunlight, coming to himself in front of the Millennium Center in Cardiff.

“Owen,” he said. “What’s up?”

Owen was pacing. He looked kind of freaked out. “I’ve got news,” he said, not looking at Jack. “Gainel wanted me to bring it, rather than your little friends.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “This is what Alanna was talking about. I’m not going to be angry with you, Owen.” Jack wandered away from the monument and over to the wharf, beckoning Owen to follow. Owen hesitated.

“Yeah you are,” he said. “You’re not going to like it.”

“Do I _ever_ like it?” Jack asked wryly.

“Point.” Owen took a breath and wandered over to lean out over the railing, not looking at Jack. “Gainel made a bargain with George.”

“I feel like Gainel’s always making bargains,” Jack replied cheerfully, but he couldn’t quite control the dangerous _get on with it_ note to his voice. “What’s the bargain?” He leaned his forearms on the railing too, looking out over the quay. The water was bright blue, brighter than it ever had been in real-life Cardiff. It almost looked like the waters of Boeshane, his home colony in the fifty-first century. Earth water never looked like that. Jack sighed.

Owen paused. “I told you that George has the Sight, right?”

“Yeah…”

Owen took a breath and then took the plunge. “Well, Gainel sent George to find Ianto.”

Silence. Jack felt his muscles lock with shock.

“George—found—” Jack felt winded. Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn’t that. A flash of anger, maybe, that the Tortallans hadn’t told him, but mostly it was only shock. “How?” he breathed.

“George has the Sight,” Owen said again, which was still not very explanatory. “Gainel sort of—there’s kind of this door. And Gainel put George there to open it. And he did. And Ianto was there. With this dead Stormwing called Rikash.”

 “ _What?_ ” Jack demanded, pushing himself away from the railing and staring at Owen. “That is—that’s the— _how? Why?_ There’s nothing after death,” Jack ranted, and started to pace. “ _Nothing._ I’ve died enough times to know that.”

“Yeah, I know,” Owen broke in angrily. “But the Graveyard Hag woke Ianto up, and since then he’s been coming after you with the force of a fucking train. He must have run into this Stormwing along the way. But it gets worse, Jack.” He ran a hand through his hair anxiously.

Jack whirled in him. “How can it get any worse?” he demanded.

Owen actually flinched. “So there’s that door, okay,” he said. “Gainel thought they might be like me, right, able to stride through dreams, so he sent me to go check it out. The door’s kind of in this meadow, and Gainel told me not to go through, or I’d be lost, and they couldn’t come through either.” He hesitated.

“Owen,” Jack growled.

“It wasn’t my fault!” he burst out. “I tried to close it!”

“Owen what happened?” Jack demanded.

“They tried to fly through,” Owen said, frantic. “Through the door, I mean, to the meadow, right, but they—they—” he swallowed. “There was this light and they disappeared.”

Jack’s heart dropped down to his knees. “What—” he whispered.

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” Owen paced. “I tried to call Gainel, okay, but he didn’t answer and I ended up here instead.”

“Well go find him!” Jack shouted. “Owen, you have to—”

“I know, I know!” he yelped, and he disappeared like a mirage.

Jack stood alone overlooking the blue, blue water in the quay.  He leaned hard on the railing, and he tried not to fall to pieces.

\----

Owen was fairly good at the dream striding thing. It wasn’t that hard, once you got the hang of it. It was like walking from one room to another.

But that door—they hadn’t come out the other side. They’d just disappeared in a white light, and Owen couldn’t find them.

He dashed from Jack’s dream, and cried for his patron. “Gainel!” he bellowed, flitting from dream to dream like a dragonfly. “Gainel!”

It wasn’t Gainel who found him, actually. Bloody creepy bastard hadn’t answered his call before, and he didn’t answer his call this time, either. But Owen didn’t want to go back to Jack without more information or a plan or _something_. So he ran, and he called.

He wound up in a dream that was sickly and uncomfortable. It was brightly vivid, but also a little frenzied. The dreamer was dying. He would have dashed out again – dying dreams were dangerous, Gainel had warned, but Owen came up short: the Black God was waiting for him.

He stood in his dark cowl, a fearsome-looking god, but Owen knew better than to be afraid. “Greetings and good health, Owen Harper,” the Black God said, voice low and ironic.

Owen liked the Black God. He was a quiet sort, but he was surprisingly good humored, unlike his brother Mithros, who had a stick shoved so far up his arse it was coming out of his ears.  And if the Black God was here, in this dream, then Owen had nothing to fear.

“Hi,” Owen told him. “Listen, I need to find Gainel.”

The Black God tilted his head under his dark cowl, “I can call him,” he said softly, “But I sense this is under my jurisdiction. Tell me, what happened?”

The Black God always wanted stories. It was part of his bargain with Owen. Generally, it was kind of fun, sitting in a pub in the Realms of the Dead and talking bullshit, but Owen had some urgent things going on. Still, maybe he could help.

“D’you know about the door in the meadow?” he asked.

The Black God tilted his head even further, if that was possible.

Of course. That asshole Gainel hadn’t told anyone about it. Great. “Well there’s this door in this meadow, okay,” Owen said quickly, “And it leads to the Darkness. Gainel sent me down there to talk to some of the dead in my world. They tried to fly through the door, but it didn’t work; they just disappeared. I need to find Gainel so I can find them.”

The Black God jerked his head back in horror. He strode up to Owen and laid a gentle hand on his arm. Were Owen alive, that would kill him, but Owen was not: it only felt sort of tingly and weird. “Take me there,” he ordered.

“Right,” Owen said, and with his other hand he reached out, and they flew.

Dream to dream to dream and Owen sort of remembered the way, remembered how Gainel had directed him. But the meadow wasn’t actually a dream, so Owen couldn’t get there on his own. Apparently sensing this, the Black God squeezed his arm gently, and the power rushed through him. Owen made the leap, and they were in that place again, with its grass and its fog and its great door.

Owen panted, winded, which made no sense, but he felt like his dead heart was racing. The Black God released his arm.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Anytime,” gasped Owen, and the weird thing was that he actually meant it.  The bloody Black God brought it out of him.

The god walked to the door, but he didn’t open it, instead rested his hand on the wood. Owen caught his nonexistent breath, and watched him.

“I see,” the Black God said. He turned to Owen. “You will not be able to find your friends,” he said quietly. “The Darkness of your world is…. complicated. This door cuts across realities. Between the door and the Darkness there is a chasm. They fell through the chasm.” He paused. “You have told me tales of your world’s great underground trains,” the Black God continued, “Think of this as the gap between the train and the platform. You cannot pass there.”

Owen felt his heart give a lurch of horror. “So they’re lost,” he croaked.

“No,” the Black God said. “They are not.” He looked back at the door. “You are Gainel’s,” he said slowly, “And also mine, but mostly Gainel’s. For this, I believe I need someone who is...” He hesitated and then cocked his head.

Owen waited, not very patiently. The Black God was conferring with the others. Finally he nodded.

“It cannot be you,” he told Owen. “But my daughter and Mynoss will help. I cannot wake the dead of your world. You stand between Life and Death, and thus you can call to those on either side. Mynoss the judge can give whomever you call the ability to stride through realms, as you do dreams. Do you know of someone to call? Perhaps Toshiko of your tales?”

Owen swallowed. God, Tosh, he thought. But there was no one better. He nodded.

“Open the door, spitfire,” the Black God murmured. Owen steeled himself, and reached for the handle.

\---

_Toshiko Sato rested in peace._

_It was a deep, dreamless sleep, unrestful but not unpleasant. There was, simply, nothing. If she were conscious, she might have liked some entertainment – a circuit to fiddle with, maybe, or a book to read. However, she was not, and so time passed unnoticed. She was not aware, but of course, there was nothing to be aware of._

_And then, a sound, as if from a dream._

_Tosh! Toshiko Sato!_

_A brief moment of—something. Not quite conscious, not really, but enough to feel—puzzled._

_Tosh! Are you there? Tosh!_

_A choice in the darkness. Answer? Or rest?_

_Awake._

_Hello?_

Light.

Tosh squinted and then blinked in the sudden light. She was dead. She remembered that she was supposed to be dead. And that there was nothing, after death. This she knew.

But she was also lying curled up on her side, and it felt like she was waking out of a deep, dreamless sleep—or a coma. But, somehow, she had chosen the waking, too. It was confusing. Around her was nothing, washed with a bright white light. There was a voice she knew, a friend.

“Owen?” Tosh called back into the darkness. Was it really…?

The light was coming from somewhere nearby. She sat up. She looked around.

There was a rectangle of light, like a doorway, incongruously floating in the darkness. Just on the other side of the threshold stood Owen Harper, like a dream come true, and though she knew that she was dead, her heart gave a leap at the sight of him. “Owen,” she said again, “How—”

“Just a minute, love,” Owen told her urgently, and he turned back and spoke to someone behind him, just outside the frame of the door. After a moment, he nodded and turned back to Tosh. His dark eyes were wide on hers, and Tosh wanted nothing more than to wrap herself into his arms.

“Listen,” Owen told her, “This just got really bizarre, okay?”

Tosh smiled at him warmly. “Hasn’t it always been bizarre?”

Owen smiled back. “Yeah, alright, I’ll give you that. Hold tight for a minute; my mate’s trying to work out a deal to get you out of there, okay? Don’t walk through the door.”

Tosh nodded. “Why?” she asked.

“Because it’s not actually a door,” Owen said wryly. “You’ll see in a minute.”

And then another voice, scratchy and feminine: _Toshiko Sato._

Tosh blinked and looked around. There was nothing but the frightening darkness, and Owen in his rectangle of light.

“It’s alright,” Owen said. “You can follow the voice.”

No. No, actually, that wasn’t alright. That sounded downright fishy. “Prove to me you’re Owen,” she said flatly.

Owen closed his eyes impatiently, but he didn’t question her need for proof, which was actually a point in his favor. “I’m dead,” he said, “I died and bloody Jack brought me back with a glove. Now I’m not really dead and not really alive.”

“Something else,” Tosh insisted.

“Ianto Jones is a git who is making my afterlife miserable,” Owen said dryly. “He used to feed the pterodactyl, right, but now he’s gone and done something incredibly stupid, and we—and I mean you and me, actually—have to bail him out. Are you coming?”

Now that sounded like Owen. Tosh smiled at him. “Alright,” she said, “I’m coming.”


	16. Chapter 15

The Bad Wolf knew. She knew Everything. All that is, all that was, and all that ever could be. But now was all that there was _,_ and the most important person, the most important moment in the whole wide universe was this right _now_ with the Doctor.

The fact that now stretched on forever, that all of time existed in this moment, was inconsequential. She loved the Doctor, and she needed him to be safe.

Even still, Jack Harkness, whom she also loved, echoed a wailing note of despair that sang counterpart to that of the Doctor and it threaded through the universe-song that tumbled and burned. The Doctor’s loneliness was deep and dark but also temporary, in its way; it had hundreds of little solutions, friends he could make along the way. But Jack’s scream jarred on her senses. The Bad Wolf was only part human, and concentrating on two things at once was hard, but the part of her that was the heart of time could do it.

Veralidaine Sarrasri, the only one of Jack’s friends who had-would ever see her, who had-would ever speak with her, did bear at least some attention, and certainly some warning. It was the Bad Wolf’s fault that things had-would go so poorly for Jack, after all.

Even still, Veralidaine Sarrasri could not see Everything.

“Everything comes to dust,” she cried once, a million times and to two different people. “All things. Everything dies!”

_And it’s my fault!_

_\---_

Numair actively disliked talking to gods, and so he avoided it when possible. His youth had been filled to the brimming with gods, animal and human alike, asking for favors and meddling and he knew down to his bones that the outcome was never good.

But sometimes it could not be avoided, and he knew that too. So when the strange woman appeared in his dream, he blinked at her, rather puzzled and a little wary, because he could tell that she was important but not why. 

She wasn’t Daine, anyway, and that made him stare in confusion for rather a long time.

“Er. Hello,” said the woman. She was beautiful, and looked vaguely Yamani, but she was dressed all wrong. She wore a dark coat that looked like leather, and strange, heavy blue breeches. Beneath the jacket was a—well, it looked almost like a white tunic—but it had no draws and it was oddly tight.

 “Hello,” Numair told her. “What are you doing in my dream?”

The woman smoothed her coat. “My name’s Toshiko Sato,” she replied. “I’m a friend of Jack’s.” She smiled hesitantly.

Numair blinked again, understanding. “This is part of George’s bargain with Gainel, isn’t it?”

Toshiko nodded, looking relieved. “Yes. Owen’s just called me. I’m supposed to learn how to stride across realms, only I keep on missing, and I’ve somehow got your dream.” She frowned, clearly frustrated.

Owen Harper, Numair assumed. Jack’s contact. “Oh,” he said and then, awkwardly, “Sorry?”

“It isn’t _your_ fault,” Toshiko said. She sat down on a rock that appeared out of nothing. Numair supposed that it was his dream, after all, and sat down next to her. “It’s just that it’s so _inexact_ ,” she said. “I can feel it just—slipping away, and every time I get a lock on it I get you. No offense,” she added belatedly.

“None taken,” Numair replied mildly.

After a moment, it occurred to Numair that there was quite a lot of information he wanted, and that Toshiko very likely had most, if not all of it. “You were part of Torchwood,” Numair said slowly. Toshiko nodded.

“Yes,” she replied.

“What exactly did you do there?” he asked. Suddenly, he had another option. Every question he’d never asked Jack bubbled to the surface. Hopefully Toshiko wouldn’t be quite as reluctant to answer—would she? “I’m just curious, you understand—you don’t have to answer me. Jack’s a bit sensitive about the topic.”

Toshiko stared at him. Numair shifted his weight, uncomfortable.

“What?” Numair said at last.

“Owen’s right,” Tosh replied, shaking her head. “Something must’ve happened to Jack. I can’t really imagine him being overly sensitive about _anything_. Usually he just changes the subject, if he’s uncomfortable talking about something.”

Numair gave her a crooked smile. “I think that’s mostly our fault,” he said apologetically. “Our world—our gods keep trying to make him—it’s a little unsavory.”

Toshiko was still frowning. “Jack has done a lot of unsavory things,” she said. “He generally doesn’t blink. I wonder what makes this different.”

At Numair’s shrug, she said, “Anyway, we caught aliens. Torchwood, I mean. We went after unusual sightings of things, and collected whatever alien scrap that fell through the Rift.”

“And weevils,” Numair added thoughtfully.

“And weevils,” she agreed. “Although that was mostly Jack and Ianto, unless it got bad. They used to go weevil hunting together.”

“That—explains more than it doesn’t,” Numair said, and Toshiko was just about to reply when something loud jarred Numair’s dreams.

“That’s probably Jack,” Toshiko told him. “Tell him I say hello?”

“Alright,” Numair replied, bemused, and then blinked awake.

 

\---

Daine woke with a jolt as something burned against her senses, something that roiled and blurred with color. The Bad Wolf lingered golden in her mind, whispering warnings.

A breeze blew through camp, and the horses’ nostrils flared, all five of them telling her urgently about the smell on the wind. A second gust rustled the leaves on the trees, and the horses huffed anxiously, sidling, eyes rolling. The weevils crouched, cowering in fear, lowing, and Daine reached out to grab a whimpering, pink Kitten. There was something _wrong_ here.

“A good night’s sleep, honestly, is that so hard?” Alanna muttered, apparently sensing it as well. She reached for her sword. George sat up blearily, looking puzzled. Jack was stirring, but his breathing came in funny, hitching gasps. Numair, of course, was still asleep.

Something moved in the distance, a shadow in the woods. Colors roiled sickeningly in Daine’s mind and suddenly, with a sinking feeling in her gut, she knew exactly what it was. It crashed and crashed and came towards camp.

Daine shook Numair’s shoulder. “We have to move.”

Numair shifted and blinked at her. “Mmm?”

“Numair,” Daine hissed. “Numair, it’s a Chaos-thing.”

“ _What?_ ” Numair bolted awake.

The shadow crashed closer. It did not move quickly, but it moved with an inexorable purpose. Daine tugged him out of the bedroll. “Jack!” she called.

Jack jerked up in surprise, and was on his feet in an instant, with soldier’s reflexes. There were tear tracks down his cheeks, but he didn’t seem to notice. Alanna had already gotten to her feet, as had George.

The thing yanked the brush aside, and it stood there on the edge of camp, long jagged mouth yawning a dripping grin. Under its hand, the shrub became a little shiny. It started to melt and ooze, like lard over a fire.

Jack jerked back.  “What the _hell_ is that?”

The shadow was shaped like a man, if a man was made of some kind of horrible, stinking liquid. Its yawn, or whatever it was, split its head nearly in two. It opened impossibly wide, and skin or saliva or both oozed and dripped between its jaws.

Daine did not spare a moment; she grabbed her bow, loaded and fired. The arrow struck, but it melted slowly into a puddle. The creature turned to her with its eyeless face. It took a stumbling step towards them. Behind her, she heard Numair gasp when it breached the warding spell he’d placed around camp.

It was Chaos. It was like the skinners. There was no beating it. There was only running. Daine grabbed her pack and lunged to release the weevils. She called the horses.

If we don’t have time to mount, you run, she told them, do you understand?

I’m not leaving you, Cloud said, to be echoed by the others.

Five, ten, fifteen loud _cracks_  issued from Jack’s revolver behind her and the thing staggered back, then turned its head to face him. That awful mouth, dripping with ooze, let out a low moan. It took a step towards Jack.

“ _Childkiller,_ ” it hissed in an echoing, awful voice and Jack went ridged.

Kitten shrieked furiously, leaping in front of the frozen Jack; she trilled, louder and louder until the creature fell to its knees, clapping sticky, liquid hands over its ears. Two knives stuck into its chest, courtesy of George; they melted, like Daine’s arrows before them.

Jack shook himself out of whatever stupor he was in, shot at it again and shouted, “Untie the weevils! We can’t beat it, we have to run!”

“Already done,” Daine told him, on the other edge of camp where she had pulled Numair.

He’d taken a moment to wake up. Now fully awake and determined beside her, Numair had made a motion with his hands, and black fire twined in his palms. He shouted a word that tore the air. The ground quaked and groaned and ripped itself open. The thing tumbled down the chasm, and it snapped shut.

The five of them stared, gaping.

“It’s not going to work,” Numair panted after a moment, gray faced and clearly exhausted. That had been his biggest spell since the Nepthalae, Daine thought with some concern, and he still hadn’t fully recovered yet. “We have to get out of here.”

Alanna gestured; their packs rolled up. Nearly at a run, Daine, Jack and George slung saddles over the horses. It took all of five minutes.

We have to run, Cloud told Daine. We have to run _now,_ Daine.

I know, I know! Daine cried back. She tightened the girth on Spots and then looked for Kitten. She didn’t bother with the saddle on Cloud. I’m going as fast as I can!

Not fast enough! Dove wailed, prancing uneasily as George tightened her girth.

There was a puddle starting to ooze up from the ground. It made the soil glisten. Kitten shrilled at it and it froze, trembling, and reached for her with one awful tentacle.

Daine had a hideous moment of horror. She was too far away to reach her.

“Don’t you _dare,_ ” Jack snarled. He lunged, grasped Kitten around the middle, and hauled her away violently. He didn’t put her down even though she squawked; he took her with him as he scrambled himself onto Red. He shot at the puddle with his revolver, but of course it did not help.

It’s not working! Red squealed, seeming to forget that Jack could not hear him.

Daine scrambled onto Cloud, who lurched away from camp as fast as she could. Hooves crashed behind her: the others followed, as fast as they dared without a road.

“Chaos thing?” Alanna panted as the horses broke through the underbrush, “What on earth—”

“Like the skinners,” Numair gasped. “In the Immortals War. But what’s it doing here?”

“The weevils,” Daine said grimly. “Remember, Jack? The badger said—”

“Aliens make Chaos stronger,” Jack growled, holding a struggling Kitten to his chest. “Right, this damn planet. For every good thing, it gives you something so damn _mad_ —”

“How do we stop it?” George demanded. He ducked a branch as Dove scrambled around a stone, huffing with terror.  

“We don’t,” Numair said. “We can’t fight it; it’s too strong. We have to run.”

“But we’re barely outside of Corus!” Alanna said.

“This is why we’re going away from the city,” Jack muttered. “Hopefully it’ll scare the weevils away.” Kitten squealed in fear and pointed over Jack's shoulder with a clawed finger; the creature was stumbling towards them. It didn’t move quickly, but what did move quickly seemed to be its effect: around it, the trees and brush shined, and started melting. The creature only walked, but the wave of melting things approached with alarming speed, like it was gaining strength.

They sped their horses. Daine didn’t know if they could out run it—she saw trees on either side of them take on a terrible sheen. Spots, in the rear, gave a horrified cry and Daine felt, viscerally, that the shoes on his feet had started to melt.

“No,” spat Jack, and he pulled on his reins, reeling Red around.

No, no, no, Red wailed in fear.

“Jack!” Daine cried. She tried to pull Cloud, but she refused with a squeal. Spots shot forward, practically cantering despite the uneven ground. Numair cried out when he passed her, but couldn’t make him stop.

Alanna swung Darkmoon around. The warhorse had laid his ears back in rage. His muscles bunched, as if going to battle.

“Are you _insane_?” Alanna bellowed, but Jack looked up at the sky, at the creature and then back at them.

“We can’t fight this thing?” he demanded. Around him, the forest was melting. Red cried out when his shoes started to liquefy.

“Jack—” Daine said desperately, and Kitten screamed. The creature strolled through the oozing leaves, and Red squealed and threatened to rear in fright.

“RIGHT!” Jack bellowed to the sky. “LET’S CALL THIS A FAVOR! GET RID OF THAT!”

The creature froze, its mouth opening so far that its head nearly split in two. The melting leaves crusted over as if with frost.

 Something unpleasant oozed from the thing’s toothless gums, and it wailed, long and low. Steam hissed from the top of its head, and it burst into flame. Mynoss, the Judgment God, stood behind it, looking Jack dead in the eye.

Daine had never met Mynoss. He’d been there when she’d stood in the Court of the Gods, but he had said nothing. He was one of the Great Gods, though, and while Daine had faced Mithros himself with only a tremor of fear, seeing this god in the mortal world shook her. He judged the dead, after all. He did not belong in the world of the living.

“One more of ten,” he said, voice low and soft.

“I want protection from those things,” Jack panted, “and we’ll call it a deal.”

Mynoss canted his head to one side. “Eight more left,” he said, and began to fade away.

“Hey!” Jack said, urging a protesting Red towards the god as Kitten shrilled to Mynoss at Jack’s indignation. “I said I wanted protection from—”

“Shall we make it seven, then?” Mynoss asked mildly. “My brothers and sisters are not pleased with you, Jack Harknesss.”

Jack snarled. “Yes,” he spat. “Call it seven. How did it get here?”

“You did not do as we asked,” Mynoss replied in his whispery voice. “Queen Uusoae gets stronger. She fights us, Jack Harkness, and if you are not careful, she will win. Aliens bring her strength; too many and we will lose control. We want these weevils destroyed. Do as we ask, or the deal is off, and we destroy you as well.” He looked over Jack’s shoulder to the Tortallans. “Should Harkness be destroyed it will be expected that you kill these weevils in his stead.” He faded away. Jack clutched a muttering Kitten to his chest, looking furious.

“Tough talk,” he muttered, just petulant as Kitten. “Nothing can destroy _me_.”

I do not know what just happened and I do not care, Red told Daine as soon as Mynoss had vanished. Tell Jack that if he ever does that again, I’ll throw him.

With good reason, Daine agreed, but when she opened her mouth, she saw Jack’s stricken face. I’ll tell him later, she told Red.

“Don’t argue,” Numair said to Jack. He urged Spots closer to Red. Spots minced a little, complaining to Daine that his shoes, while solid once more, were cold. “Mynoss is the Judgment God. His word is final. You can’t change his mind.”

“We’ll have to kill them, then.” Jack said flatly, “Perfect. Genocide, just what I need to brighten up my day.” He scowled.

Daine felt a sweep of horror in her gut.  “G-genocide?” she whispered. She knew that word from her history lessons with Numair, long ago. It was a terrible word, and a terrible thing. Even Alanna looked sick.

“Ordered to kill an entire species, just because of what they are? That’s genocide. We can’t go against the gods’ wishes.” Jack’s voice was flat, but he clutched at Kitten with a sort of desperation _._ His knuckles around Red’s reins had turned white, and he was trembling slightly.

It called him Childkiller, Cloud whispered, but Daine was too distracted to reply.

 “It isn’t—” Alanna said, but Jack glared at her, and she fell silent. There wasn’t really an argument: Jack was right.

 “We can send them back,” Daine said. “Can’t we? If we knew how, we could send them away.”

“Daine, if the gods—” Numair started nervously, but Daine glared at him.

“I’m not killing them just because they’re hungry, Numair, that isn’t fair!” she said. “That’s like killing a horse for eating grass, like killing a wolf for hunting deer. I won’t do it!”

Thunder growled from somewhere. There was a hard knot of fear in Daine’s gut, but she’d faced down gods before, and she’d do it again.  She felt three stares, but she only looked at Numair. He sat ridged, watching at Daine with his dark, frightened eyes.

“Please don’t get killed,” he whispered with enough fear and sorrow to break her heart.

Red stepped up to Cloud's side and Daine tore her eyes away from Numair’s. Jack’s rage seemed to fill the air, it was so thick. “No,” he told her, low and fierce, and then turned to Numair. “I will not stand by while any of you get killed,” he promised, and his words felt as honest and true as those of any animal’s, any creature who could not even conceive of a lie, let alone tell one.  

He looked up at the sky. “She won’t do it,” he told the clouds darkly. “None of them will. _I’ll_ do it.”

“Jack—” George protested, but Jack turned flaming blue eyes to him.

“No,” he growled, “I’ll not have this staining your hands, even yours, George. I’ll track them myself.”


	17. Chapter 16

As their horses picked their way through the forest, conversation dropped off for a long while. Numair looked down onto Spots’ black and white neck, sighing heavily. Mynoss’ decree hung like a shadow over their heads and while he understood the reason for it, it still seemed wrong. Finally, Alanna broke the silence. 

“Well,” she said, “It’s not like we don’t kill spidrens for what they are.”

“I still try to avoid it,” Daine muttered. Numair shot her a glance, concerned at her tone and trying to catch her eye. He wanted to comfort her, but she looked angry rather than miserable.

“You _are_ avoiding it,” Jack replied sharply. “ _I’m_ doing it.” His voice brooked no argument. Numair saw Kitten, draped in front of him on the saddle, look up. She very visibly decided that she did not want to join the conversation, and then looked back down again, braiding Red’s mane with silver claws. Numair hid a smile, since it really wasn’t appropriate.

“And what does that mean?” George asked.

“No idea,” Jack muttered. “I think we should keep tracking them, and then at nightfall you’ll make camp, and I’ll go out to find them.”

“And get eaten by spidrens,” Alanna put in dryly. Numair winced, but the sentiment was a good one. “Might I remind you,” she continued, “that it’s actually my duty to defend the crown and Tortall from any that might harm her? I’m pretty sure weevils count.”

Jack looked back at her for a long moment. He seemed to fold in on himself. “You remind me of someone I once knew, you know. You’re stubborn,” he added darkly.

“Yes, I am,” Alanna said. “And I’m helping. I don’t care what you say.”

“Fine,” Jack muttered, but his blue eyes were sad. “Do what you like. I don’t care.” He very clearly did, Numair thought. How was this the same man who had had all of them so fooled? The spell on his coat was good, but it didn’t force a complete transformation. Jack was an open book. How had that happened?

He should remove that spell, Numair thought. Jack had more than proved himself.

“Good,” George was saying decisively. “Daine and Numair can set camp, and Alanna and I will go hunting with you.”

“No," Jack said. He looked at Numair with his blue, intense eyes and said, “You can set up camp, but I’ll need Daine and Alanna with me. No, George, you know this makes more sense. I know you do. We need Numair rested, and we need someone to guard camp. You’re better suited to that than to go wandering in the woods.”

George looked thoughtful. Numair spluttered in protest but before he could say anything Jack, scowling, continued speaking over him.

“And Daine.” Jack halted Red and looked back at her. Numair’s hackles rose protectively. If Jack put Daine in danger… “I want you to try to find out how the weevils come here.”

“I’m not calling them,” she replied, giving Numair an exasperated look when he made an indigent noise. Surely it would be safer to just call them one at a time, than to go looking for them, where there might be whole packs. He glared at her.

Jack frowned. “We’re going to need to capture them either way,” he said, nearly echoing Numair’s thoughts.

“It’s not fair otherwise,” Daine insisted. 

Jack sighed. He dropped his eyes to Red’s mane for a moment and then looked back up at Daine. Numair didn’t really know how he felt about the affection he saw there. “Fair or not, Daine, we need to catch them. If we know how they came to be here, we can send them back, or prevent them from coming here altogether.”

Daine watched him for a moment. “I suppose,” she said. “But if I call them, you can’t kill them or catch them. That’s not fair.” Jack made an exasperated noise and Daine glared at him. “And that’s final, Jack Harkness.”

Jack looked a little chagrined. He subsided.

 Numair shifted his weight uncomfortably. He could see where this was leading, and for Daine’s safety, he didn’t like it. “We’re not going against Mynoss’ decree,” he said uneasily. “I don’t know about you, Jack, but I would rather not be punished by the gods.”

“We’re not going against his decree,” Jack said, but he wouldn’t look Numair in the eye. “We’re—”

“Tweaking it a little,” George supplied, and Jack quirked his lips in amusement. That really wasn’t encouraging, Numair thought.

“Exactly,” Jack said.

“As you say, Jack,” Numair sighed as he conceded, and then gave a reluctant smile. “It’s your funeral.”

“Better mine than yours,” Jack replied with a bright grin that most definitely didn’t meet his eyes. Numair felt Daine’s eyes on him in a glare. He winced at his own tactlessness.

“That was thoughtless. Sorry.” In his mind, Numair gave himself a hearty kick.

“It’s fine,” Jack said, his lips softening into a smile that was almost real. There was affection in his gaze for Numair too, he realized. Numair wasn’t really sure what to do with that, either.

“I could have a funeral,” Jack added whimsically. “It would just be silly. Have I ever told you about the first time I woke up in a morgue? Must’ve been the third or fourth time I died. Awkward, you know, when the undertaker came into the room.”

Alanna snorted. “What did you tell him?”

Jack grinned. “’There’s enough room for two in here.’ I’ve never seen a man so big move so fast.”

Numair chuckled, still feeling guilty. But Jack had smoothly diverted the conversation to inconsequential, amusing things that rallied their low spirits. The conversation continued late into the day. Daine was laughing a laugh he loved, the one that interrupted her own stories, when she suddenly paused; they all heard someone’s stomach rumble

“We never ate, did we?” Daine asked the general air. There were several murmurs of agreement. Rather than dismounting, they continued ahead. George pulled out a few pieces of salt pork and, on Jack’s suggestion, wrapped it in bread to pass around. The bread, barely a few days old, was still reasonably fresh. They continued on. Jack, who didn’t look particularly hungry, snuck Kitten pieces of his food but Numair did not comment.

Daine had allowed her senses to expand and led them north, although she warned of Coldfangs. Jack looked wary, apparently remembering Numair’s explanation from a few days ago.

“That—sounds unpleasant,” he said slowly. “How many are there, Daine?”

Daine cocked her head, as if listening. “Just one,” she said, “ _maybe_ two. The weevils are farther up, still headed toward the city. I think there’s another brook nearby.”

“Well then,” George said. “Lead the way. We’ll make camp by the brook, and you can go find these beasties.”

“I hope you mean weevils,” Jack stated dryly. “Because I’ve stolen a fair amount in my lifetime. I’d rather not become someone’s lunch.”

“That might be nasty,” Alanna said, and Jack winced.

“You’ve no idea,” he muttered.

\---

Numair fell asleep quickly that night, more quickly than he had anticipated. Apparently the scare from the Chaos being and Mynoss’ frightening decree had exhausted him more than he had imagined. His dreams were not unpleasant, but certainly not what he expected. He was just explaining to a three headed cow that Kitten was only a baby, and it was unfair to expect a baby become a knight, when a familiar woman appeared.

“Toshiko!” Numair exclaimed. The three headed cow protested indigently at the invasion, but then remarked that perhaps she could solve this debate for them.

“Hello, Numair,” she said, giggling at the cow a little. “This is an odd dream.”

“Yes,” he agreed, and the cow faded away. “I’m glad you interrupted it. Still can’t find that other realm?”

Toshiko scowled. “No.” She sat down, and Numair sat next to her.

He abruptly realized that in all the madness of the Chaos thing, he’d forgotten to tell Jack about her. Damn.

Feeling a little guilty, he asked, “How do you do it? Maybe I can help.”

She looked at him skeptically. “If you knew how to cross realms, I doubt Owen and the Black God would have woken me.”

Numair shrugged. “I taught Daine how to use her Wild Magic without ever having experienced it,” he said. “When you get right down to it, the underlying theory is quite similar across magics.”

Toshiko looked intrigued. “I wasn’t aware there was a theory,” she said, and then added, “Which one is Daine?”

Almost as if Toshiko had conjured her, a laughing image of Daine rode Cloud across a green field of Numair’s dreamscape.  Toshiko smiled indulgently at the soppy look that must have stolen over Numair’s face.

“How long have you been together?” she asked.

Numair sighed. “Hard to say,” he replied. “She was my student, first, but since the Divine Realms—” He winced as the image changed; Daine going over a cliff and the accompanying terror sweeping through him. “Almost a year,” he managed.

 The terrible cliff faded. The dreamscape started to darken, and Toshiko rose, frowning. “What’s this?” she asked. “You’re not going to have a nightmare, are you?”

“I hope not,” Numair muttered, standing with her, and looking around in confusion. The warmth in his chest evaporated with dream-swiftness. The cliffside might have indeed provoked a nightmare; it often did. The sky became twisted with strangely colored things, and the world felt heavy, the air stale as though they were stuck in a box.

“Hang on, are those circuits?” Toshiko asked, looking up at the twisted metal in the sky.

“That’s the food storage receptacle from the Nepthalae ship,” Numair realized suddenly, and the atmosphere lightened as easily as that. The black box thumped to land on green grass next to his feet. He bent to pick it up. “You worked with Jack,” he added thoughtfully. “Do you think you could fix it?” He handed it to her.

Toshiko cocked her head to one side, examining the box. “This isn’t the real thing,” she said slowly. “It’s a dream-version. It might not be accurate.”

“It’s accurate,” Numair replied dryly. “I’ve been looking over Jack’s shoulder at that thing for a while now. I feel like I’ve memorized it. If you tell me how, I can likely fix it. If you can figure it out, that is.”

Toshiko’s eyes flashed at the challenge. “I’ll make you a deal,” she said. “Teach me your theory of magic, and I’ll teach you how to fix this.” She held out a hand.

Numair shook it and grinned at her. “Deal.”

Toshiko smiled. “Then call me Tosh.”  

\---

The Bad Wolf is. She is, was, and will be forever, until the universe ends and begins again.

She doesn’t so much follow Jack as see all of his days as one moment. The Daleks must not kill Jack on Satellite Five. This she knows, and she does not permit it. But she cannot understand that other moments happen after this one, and that she brings him to life for always, and why that hurts. She can understand Chaos, however, and she can see that Chaos is free and that she is somehow, somewhen, somewhere responsible.

She can see Everything. All that is, all that was, and all that ever could be.

And yet Jack _hurts,_ and she cannot understand it.

_But this is wrong! You can’t control life and death!_

“But I can. The Sun and the Moon. The Day and the Night… but why do they hurt?”

They must not hurt. _Jack_ must not hurt.


	18. Chapter 17

Between the Darkness and the Door was something else entirely.  Rikash gave an eagle’s scream, and Ianto sucked in a breath that he didn’t need, and didn’t make a sound.  

The Stormwing’s scream did not carry far. They’d brought in just a wisp of that mist, Ianto thought with abstract terror, enough to carry just the tiniest bit of sound, but it had dissipated, and now Rikash was mute. If they had been alive, they would have suffocated, or exploded, or whatever it was you did when there was no time, because _there was no time._

He wasn’t on a bungee cable anymore. He didn’t have any clothes, or a body, and neither did Rikash. Ianto clung to whatever part of the soul that the Stormwing had, and Rikash clung back in sheer, unadulterated terror. This was worse than nothing. It was the absence of even nothing.  

The Void, Ianto thought in horror. He knew what this was. This was where the Cybermen had gone after Canary Warf. Which also meant that _there were Cybermen here._ And Daleks. But surely they were dead. Nothing could live here. Surely, surely, there was nothing alive in this place. Ianto clung to Rikash harder, terrified.  

There was no time in the Void. It wasn’t that it was endless. That wasn’t quite the correct word; it was beginningless, too. It was barely a state of being. There was no concept of _before_ and _after_ , only now, for one eternal, unchanging moment.

It was Hell. If Ianto had tears, he would sob. He could feel the barest hint of steel, as if Rikash had wrapped nonexistent wings around him. 

Hell. They were in Hell.

\---

Jack, Daine and Alanna returned late from their weevil hunt, unsuccessful. George roused, blinking a little blearily.

"Don't even talk," Alanna muttered, annoyed beyond words. She knelt next to George and started to change for bed.  He watched her sleepily. "I just want to go to sleep; I'm exhausted, and Captain Idiot over there kept on leading us in circles. _I'm_ a better tracker than that."

"That's because the weevils are going in circles," Daine said, sounding irritated, from the other side of camp. She must have gone over to where Numair was sleeping.

"The tracks just start,” Jack said, equally irritated.  He started preparing his bedroll, from the sound of it. “You can't just appear out of nowhere." George pressed his cheek into his bedroll, eyes closing drowsily.

"Maybe we should have followed the tracks, instead of going backwards," Alanna snapped next to him. He spared a sleepily fond thought about her temper.

"We could've found their den," Jack grumbled. His voice was a little muffled; he must’ve curled up in his bedroll.

Alanna huffed indignantly. George let out a sigh and opened his eyes. He gazed up at her and she seemed to soften. She wriggled into the blankets, warm and soft and strong.

"Relax, Lioness," he murmured into her hair. "You can worry in the morning."

Alanna sighed and relented, resting her head on his chest. "Jus' frustrating, that's all," she replied, already drowsy. George hummed back at her, stroking her red hair until he felt her body go lax, asleep. He smiled to himself and closed his eyes, drifting off as well.

When he woke, it was late morning, and Daine, Numair and Kitten were already up. The wildmage had her head on Numair's shoulder, watching him do something that was partially obscured by the glowing embers of the fire. Jack was a mess of blankets, although he seemed to be awake. Two blue eyes peeked out from underneath his bunched-up coat, mostly gazing at Daine and Numair with sleepy affection. Alanna remained dead to the world, so George carefully extricated himself.

"Morning," Daine said lowly, so as not to wake Alanna or disturb Jack, who glanced once at George, but didn’t move.

"G'morning," George responded in kind. "Do we have any breakfast?"

"Kit found some blueberries," Daine murmured. George glanced at Kitten, who seemed to have gorged herself, to judge by the purple stains all over her scales. He turned back to Daine and Numair, peering around the fire to see what the mage was doing. He was busily fiddling with Jack's black box while Daine looked on.

"Careful with that," George warned him, reaching for some berries from the dragon's pile. She muttered sullenly, but did not protest otherwise.

Numair huffed, poking a wire with a twig. "Shakith curse it!" A spark flashed. Daine huffed with laughter, reaching for his hand, and pressing a kiss to the burnt finger. The mage smiled at her warmly, and looked down to continue to fiddle.

"Break it, and I shall be very upset with you," Jack's voice emerged drowsily from his pile of blankets.

"I thought you were asleep," Numair accused, shaking his burnt finger.

"I am," Jack replied, burrowing. Daine chuckled again, and moved away from her mage to make some toast for George.

\---

And then—it changed.  

It was like the drawstring of a bag pulled closed. An existing dimension wrapped around them in something that might have been a circle and then drew tight. Ianto found himself with a body, lying on some semblance of the ground, with his arms wrapped around Rikash’s neck and surrounded by steel feathers. They were both breathing fast.

“Christ,” Ianto said weakly.  He hid his face against Rikash, unable to help himself, uncaring of the smell. He could feel Rikash doing the same thing. 

Rikash swallowed. “Steel and claw,” he rasped into Ianto’s neck.

“Ianto?”

They both flinched. Those steel wings tightened around Ianto’s back. If he had been alive, they would have cut him to ribbons, but he was not, so it was only a comfort.

Footsteps, and then a hand touched Ianto’s arm very gently. “Ianto? It’s Tosh. It’s alright now.”

Tosh?

Steeling himself, he looked up from Rikash’s shoulder.

Toshiko Sato was crouched next to him, a look of concern on her face. That—was entirely unexpected. Ianto blinked at her sluggishly.

“It’s alright, Ianto,” she said again, but then looked over and frowned at Rikash. She rose.

“Don’t hurt him,” Ianto blurted, and wriggled out of Rikash’s steel embrace. The Stormwing flinched a little. “He’s a friend.” He got to his feet shakily, and stood in front of Rikash.

Rikash ruffled his feathers and rolled to his feet as well.  Ianto felt him at his back. The Stormwing mantled, wings spread wide and arching forward around Ianto protectively. The tips brushed the ground by Ianto’s heels. He hissed like an enormous swan.  

Tosh ignored him and met Ianto’s eyes.

Ianto gathered himself. “Prove you’re Tosh,” he told her.

Tosh smiled at him.  “You saved my life on your first field mission,” she said quietly. “You and Jack used to play naked hide and seek after hours, and neither of you deleted the security feeds.” Her smile turned devilish, and her eyes twinkled. “Every morning I’d go over them. You and Jack had a lot of fun.”

Ianto blinked. He was unsure if he felt glad that this was clearly Tosh, or completely mortified.  

“I—how—?”

“Owen woke me up,” she said. “Or, sort of Owen. I woke up, anyway, but a bunch of—well, they said they were gods—actually pulled me through. I haven’t seen him since, but apparently Owen can only walk through dreams. You got stuck between dimensions. They needed someone else to do that, but it takes a lot of power; I only have so many trips.” She shrugged. “Who’s your friend?” She peered over Ianto’s shoulder at Rikash, whose wings were still curled above him protectively.

Ianto nodded to himself. He looked back to Rikash. “I think she is who she says she is,” he told him. The steel wings flapped once, and then folded. Rikash shifted his weight, looking a little embarrassed.   

Ianto didn’t comment. The protection had been appreciated. “This is Rikash Moonsword. He’s an alien, obviously—he’s called a Stormwing. Rikash, this is Toshiko Sato, Torchwood Operative. We used to work together.”

“Clearly,” Rikash scowled, but he nodded to Tosh, both a greeting and a thanks. “You and your Torchwood.”

“Yes, me and my Torchwood,” Ianto replied, and he saw Tosh fight a small smile. “How did you find us? And how did you do—this?”

“The Howling doesn’t have dimensions,” she said.  “It’s all in one place—or all in every place.” She frowned. “There’s only so many places to look, anyway.”

Ianto shuddered. “Can you take us out of here?”  

She shrugged. “You’re already out, actually. I can’t bring you to the Dreaming, but there’s this edge around it. I’ve brought you to—”

But there was a strange sort of distortion, and she was interrupted. Owen stepped through—something—and appeared in a strange sort of shimmer.

 “There you are,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“Owen!” Tosh cried in delight and strode over to him. Awkwardly, she stopped short in front of him, grin slowly fading. She stuck out a hand.

“Oh, _honestly,_ ” Owen growled, grabbing her hand and pulling her bodily into his arms. Tosh gave a startled, but ultimately happy, squeak. “You practically poured your heart out to me when I died; don’t think I don’t _know_ , Tosh.”

“I thought you’d forgotten or—or—”

“—didn’t care? _Please!_ I do, in fact, have a heart.” He bent to kiss her.

Ianto delicately cleared his throat. Rikash made a disgusted sound. Tosh and Owen stopped and both, as one, glared.

Rikash turned to Ianto. “Please tell me you’re not this sickening with your Jack Harkness,” he said.

“You shouldn’t judge,” Ianto replied mildly.

“It’s a good thing we’re all dead, so I can’t bloody _kill_ you,” Owen snapped. Reluctantly, he released Tosh. “Do you have any _idea_ how many people you’ve pissed off?”

Ianto opened his mouth to snap back something sarcastic, but Rikash sidled, his wings whispering like a sword in a scabbard. “Ianto,” he said. Ianto glanced back at him.

“Look,” said Rikash, gesturing with his wing.

“Oh, _shit,_ ” blurted Owen.  

There was a crack in the distance. It was widening, creeping up on them.

“Tosh, this was too far away from Dream. It’s the outer edge. It’s not stable. We need to leave,” Owen said, “We need to leave _right now._ ”

Tosh reached out as if to grab something, but nothing happened. “Owen, I—I think I used it up, I can’t—” she said, and Owen swore. He grasped her hand and pulled.

Owen shimmered and vanished, leaving Tosh behind. He reappeared a moment later, still swearing. “I can’t bring you—” he said.

It happened very fast. The crack rippled. It reached up in to what might have been the sky, and then beyond the sky.  Distance became meaningless; the world melted and shifted like slow moving lava. The horizon, absent a moment before, slammed into existence, and then moved.  It crunched closer and then shrank farther away, not a straight line but something that warped and dripped and oozed. It was like a clock in a Dali painting, but it was everything. There were no flat surfaces anymore, not even a sky, instead it looked like something dripping, like a wet painting, although no liquid touched the ground. The world slowly colored into yellow, brown and gray, with sickening bursts of violet and green, twisting and morphing.

Something bleated like a goat, in the distance, although to call it a distance would be a mistake.

Tosh was gasping a little, as though in pain.  "What happened?"

“We shifted again,” Owen said. He reached out and grasped Tosh’s arm. “Made you a little sick, yeah? That’s to do with the thing they gave you.”

Tosh nodded, wide eyed.

"That—is different," Ianto managed weakly, staring at the sickening, moving horizon.

"I'm so glad you've joined the fucking party," Owen snapped.

"Well, how do we get out of here?” Rikash growled. He dug his claws into the ground and yelped when it heaved like a living thing, tossing him into the air. His wings fanned slowly, like he was moving through soup.  

Tosh took a breath, and seemed to recover, but then the ground churned sickeningly, and she staggered. Owen lunged to catch her. "What the hell?"

There was a noise, another one, somewhere in the distance. "Wait," Ianto said. He took a step away, sure he’d heard something.  A little step away became a huge distance in the changing perspective of the place.

"Ianto!" Rikash called. He sounded afraid. "Ianto!"

But there was something there, and when Ianto came upon it he had to stifle a gasp.

There was a form tied to the ground, although tied _by_ the ground seemed to be a more apt description. Bits of the sickly dirt clung to it, oozing like a liquid, and the more it struggled the more it was ensnared, as though by an octopus. It twisted; human-shaped and naked, it was clearly male. 

"He's—" Tosh whispered, and it rung loud in the twisting, changing silence, "he's trapped." She came up behind Ianto to stand at his elbow. Owen followed, and Rikash swept his wings into the air, flying low.

The bound creature threw his head back and let out a bray like a goat, the strange, oozing substance curling around two massive, curved horns that grew from behind his ears. His fur, gray and white streaked, was matted and knotted, slicked with the stuff like an otter covered in oil. As Ianto approached the creature seemed to get bigger, massive, at least three times his size. A huge, snake like tail lashed once and then jerked, caught by the sticky substance.

"That's—that's him," Owen said abruptly. "That's the Guardian."

"It is?" Tosh asked. She twisted around to look up at Rikash. He came to a careful landing beside her.

"Definitely,” Owen said. “My mate Gainel showed me what he looked like. What is this place?"

"I think we already came to the consensus that not only do we have no idea, but also that we can’t leave," Ianto muttered dryly.

"Owen can leave,” Tosh said. “Is it someone's dream?" she added, but she sounded like she already knew that it wasn’t.

Owen shook his head slowly. "If it were a dream, Gainel would've found the Guardian sooner," he said. "This is a border place—between Dream and—and the Howling."

The creature twisted again, struggling; one of the arms of liquid that held him stretched like Silly Putty, and then snapped with a loud _crack_. The Guardian of the Gates brayed, trying to free his horns, but the ropes of sticky substance clung to him tightly. The broken one reattached and he let out a sound of dismay.

"What's that?" Tosh asked, picking her way closer to the creature—although, of course, 'closer' was a poor way to describe the depthless place. Ianto watched her uneasily. The ground there shifted. It didn’t seem stable, like she could sink into it at any moment.

"Tosh—" Owen said anxiously. Ignoring him, Tosh stepped forward, her feet sure on the sticky ground. She bent down and lifted something that glittered.

"It's a net," Rikash said, waddling over to her. "A golden net."

"He should have a spear, too," Owen added.

"Yes," Ianto agreed. "There." He gestured. 

To call it a spear would be an understatement; the thing was easily four times the size of Ianto himself and twice as thick around the middle. It was gold-colored as well, though it glittered in a way that gold did not. The point of it was not sharp, but a blue stone of some kind, something that was not a sapphire.

"How do we get him out of here?" Rikash asked. Tosh cocked her head, considering the net.

“More importantly,” Ianto muttered, “How do _we_ get out of here?”

"Owen," Tosh said. "Will he be able to walk through dreams, too?"

"Dunno," Owen said. He was still looking at the Guardian, like he was mesmerized.

"Some help you are," she tossed at him, and then added, "And this net. What's its purpose?"

Owen shrugged.  He tore his eyes away to look back at her. "Presumably to keep stuff away from the Gate. Why?"

"I figured it was something like that," she said. "What if we threw the net over him?"

"—and then trap him even more?" Ianto replied incredulously. Tosh gave him an unamused look.  

"Well," she reasoned, "We're dealing with gods and mythology here, right? The net keeps things that aren't from his world away, and things that are part of his world in. Perhaps it can scare away this—goopy stuff." She waved at it.

“And what will we do once he’s free?” Rikash asked. “We can’t get away. Or have you people not noticed that we’re stuck here?”

Ianto thought about it. "I’m all for new friends,” he murmured dryly. “And maybe he can help us get out— it's better than standing here, anyway.”

Owen looked from Tosh to the net, and then nodded slowly. "How do we get that close?"

Rikash made his wings clash to get their attention. "Some of us can fly," he drawled. "I could bring it over. But—a word of caution. If we free him, whoever is keeping him captive may notice."  


	19. Chapter 18

Rikash grunted with exertion as he dragged the golden net into the air. Ianto bent to lift parts of it, feeding it to him as he gained altitude. Tosh joined him, helping to lift it. The net had a strange texture, and it was heavy, but unexpectedly so.

Owen did not help, the bastard. Instead he stood off to the side, or as off to the side as anyone could when distance was just a metaphorical thing, and watched them uneasily.

The Guardian brayed again, jerking in his prison, but one massive green goat's eye swung onto them and he stilled. The sickly colored tendrils that bound him shifted restlessly, and one wound slowly on his left horn.

"Right," Ianto told him, feeling silly, but also feeling as though he should at least attempt to communicate. "We don't know if this will work—"

"Oh, honestly, like it can understand you," Owen snapped.

"It might," Tosh said, and Owen rolled his eyes.

"I'm releasing," Rikash said, hovering above the Guardian, net glittering in his claws. Ianto braced himself.

The net fell slowly, billowing like a sheet, and spread itself gracefully around the Guardian.

There was a silence. Ianto held his unnecessary breath.

And then the Guardian screeched like a sacrifice being slaughtered. The net glowed yellow, brighter and brighter until it was blinding to look at. The world, shifting and changing, jerked, and there was a howling, whining scream that didn't seem to come from anywhere in particular, but it filled the place with wild, rage-filled noise. The tendrils of ooze caging the Guardian hissed alarmingly and then curled to ash. He struggled, caught in his own net now, and then threw it off with a triumphant bellow. He was free.

"Yes!" Ianto said quietly, while Rikash whooped from the air and Tosh and Owen beamed at each other.

The Guardian took a step, and his foot sunk into the ground.

"Oh, bloody hell," Owen muttered, and then cried out himself. A dark, shifting tendril from the ground wound slowly around his ankle. He shook his foot, but was unable to dislodge it.

"Owen!" Tosh cried, lunging forward to help. From above, Rikash gave an eagle's scream as the air solidified around him, tangling horribly with his wings.

"We need to leave!" Ianto called, pulling away from a tendril of the stuff that tried to grip his own ankle.

"No kidding!" Owen cried, a gun appearing in his hand. He shot at the ground, and the stuff recoiled. "Run!"

But of course there _was_ no running, Ianto realized with horror. They couldn’t get out. Even Tosh couldn’t leave. There was no escaping here.

But the Guardian seemed to understand the sentiment, because he jerked his foot from the ground, standing on his net. Lifting his spear, he pointed it and shouted; blue light shot from the stone at the tip and the ground, screaming, recoiled. Another shot to the air; Rikash plummeted, caught himself in an off-balance glide before winking out of existence, vanishing in a rush of blue light.

"Rikash!" Ianto cried, and then the world exploded.

He came to himself lying flat on his back on a white, featureless plain. Beside him was Rikash, curled onto his side like a bird with a broken wing. Ianto, feeling too wobbly to stand, pulled himself with one arm over to his friend.

“Rikash?” he asked. The Stormwing moaned. Ianto reached out and rested two fingers on his neck.  His skin was cold but otherwise human-like, and Ianto realized belatedly what an idiot he was being.

“It’s not like I’m going to have a pulse,” Rikash rasped.

“Point,” Ianto said, withdrawing. “But you’re alright?”

Rikash made a discontent noise, but staggered to his feet.

Ianto braced himself, and stumbled to his feet as well. He felt a slow shiver work its way own his spine. This was—yet another sodding dimension. A white plain stretched out into infinity, covered by a gray sky, that also stretched out into infinity. There were no clouds, and no features. It was just the ground and the sky, and nothing else. 

Beside him, he heard Rikash start to swear.

But then blue light bloomed from somewhere. Ianto shaded his eyes, and when the light faded Tosh and Owen were there, clutching each other’s arms in terror. The Guardian, braying, appeared behind them in a flash of blue, spear and net in either hand.

Owen jerked away from Tosh, shaking.  He looked left and right, swallowing.

“Tosh, can you leave?” he asked softly.

Tosh made a motion to grab at the air. Nothing happened. She shook her head. “You?”

Owen took a deep breath. He shimmered. “It’s a dreamscape,” he said. “We’re still on the edge of Dream. I can—I can find Gainel—”

The nothing had no temperature. It was neither hot nor cold, neither comfortable nor uncomfortable. It was also eerily silent, so the distant, threatening rattling and the sudden temperature drop were glaringly obvious. Rikash's sudden shivers clacked and clanged over the low, rattle-snake hiss.

Ianto rubbed his arms. He reflected that feeling cold made no sense, but also that nothing made sense anymore anyway, so why should this be any different?

"Has anyone noticed—?" Tosh began, but was interrupted by Owen's yell.

Ianto felt himself seized violently by the shoulders and hoisted up. There was no pain, of course, because he was dead, but he had a sickening feeling of knowing that there _should_ be pain, and a great deal of it. He looked up and saw Rikash, who had dug his claws into Ianto's shoulder. He had grasped him like an owl grabs a mouse, and hauled him up into the air, or whatever passed for air in this weird dream place.  

Below them was a monster. It was slung low but massive, like a komodo dragon, lizard-like tongue sliding out to taste air that was not, technically, there. The pebbled scales on its sides were dark green and gleaming, reflecting light crazily in every direction, casting tiny rainbows as though the air were saturated with water. Its mouth opened and it hissed, long and low; a secondary set of fangs dropped, and something that looked unpleasantly like venom dripped from the points. The alarming rattling sliced through the darkness. There was some kind of hard end to the creature's tail, and it clattered and hissed like a rattlesnake.

"Coldfang," Rikash hissed. His claws tightened on Ianto and he dived. Ianto had a dizzying moment of vertigo but then Rikash arched back up. He’d tried to grab Tosh but missed.  The thing had lunged. "It's a Coldfang. Find Gainel, _now!_ "

Owen did not need telling twice. He cast an apologetic look to Tosh and then vanished as the creature lunged after him. Tosh let out a shout of alarm as another of the creatures appeared behind the first, stalking towards her.

"Rikash—" Ianto warned, unable to articulate the fact that, if his friend did not lift Tosh out of danger _right now,_ Ianto would not be held accountable for his actions.

"I know, I know," Rikash hissed, banking, swooping low and then missing again as one of the great lizards snapped at him. "But you're awkward to fly with, and they're making it cold!"

"Tosh, run!" Ianto yelled, and Tosh made an exasperated noise as she dodged one of the creatures.

"Does it not look like I'm trying?" she shouted. “I’m still blocked!” She whirled on the creature, a gun appearing in her hand—apparently, she knew the _expecting_ trick. She shot once, twice, but it passed through the creature like smoke.

"That won't work, they're alive," Rikash said. "And we're barely ideas."

"They're _alive_? How is that even possible?" Ianto demanded, or tried to, because his voice cut off in a squeak when Rikash dived. He missed, cursing, but Ianto didn't; as Rikash banked away Ianto grabbed Tosh's arm. The Stormwing jerked in surprise before climbing higher, the Coldfangs hissing after him. Ianto changed his grip, holding Tosh under the shoulder as they rose. Rikash was right—she was weightless, but her shape and angle were awkward.

"The Guardian!" Tosh hissed, and Ianto swore.

"He's fine," Rikash said swiftly. "Don't worry, he's fine. He's not the thief; we are."

"What the _hell_ are you talking about?" Ianto looked up at the Stormwing. He had to turn away, feeling sick when he saw the steel claw embedded in his shoulder.

"Coldfangs guard things and hunt thieves," Rikash explained, banking, flying in a slow circle as though caught in a heat thermal, although of course there was no heat here. The Coldfangs remained below them, hissing and rattling.

"And he was the object, not the taker," Ianto muttered, but he searched below. "Where is he?"

"No idea," Tosh said, but after a pause, she pointed. "There!"

The Guardian, alarmingly, had lain down on the ground. The Coldfangs ignored him, and the massive creature did not seem to care. As they watched, he began to fade, and Rikash started to curse again.

"He’s not meant to be here," he snarled. “He’s not meant to be here—it’s doing something to him.”

"You know what? I should just stop asking why. Guardian!" Ianto shouted. "Guardian of the Gates!" He looked up at Rikash. "What the hell is his name?"

"No clue," the Stormwing snapped. The Coldfangs rattled beneath them, but the Guardian did not stir.

"Guardian!" Tosh called, adding to Ianto's noise.

Rikash banked, circling the Guardian like a vulture. "How the hell are we going to get him out of here?"

\---

"I want you safe. My Doctor. Protected from the false god."

That goes for Jack too, Rose Tyler thought, barely a whisper beneath the pain of the Bad Wolf crowding in her mortal head. Jack should not hurt. There must be a way for him not to hurt.

\---

To say the Owen ran as fast as he could would be an understatement.

He raced through the Realms of the Dead and then flew to the Gates of that world, racing past the Black God without so much as an explanation. He’d pay for that later, but fuck it. Gainel's realms were beyond that, and as soon as he appeared he shouted for the god.

"Gainel!" he bellowed, standing in the mists of Dream. _"Gainel!"_

 _\--Owen,--_ the god acknowledged, and the world melted into Torchwood Three.

"We found him," Owen gasped. "We found the Guardian, but there are these things—Coldfangs, Rikash called them Coldfangs—"

 _\--And now you must get him out. Where have you brought him?—_ Gainel asked urgently.

"No idea," Owen panted. “It’s like this big flat place—just sky and ground—” and the dream god hissed in horror, interrupting him.

_\--That is an unformed Realm! We cannot leave our borders. You must get him out, Owen, or he is lost!—_

_\---_

Jack scowled down at Red's neck. The horse picked his way through the forest as they traveled deeper, hopefully leading any following weevils away from the city Corus, although Jack doubted that it would be helpful.

Kit sat draped in the saddle in front of him, humming to herself as she fiddled with the receptacle, with which Numair had made remarkable progress. It didn't seem quite functional yet, but the dragon was surprisingly intelligent. She trilled and croaked and whistled at it like a little kid with a Rubix cube.

"Any progress?" he asked, and the dragon spared him a slit-pupilled glance before looking back at the small black box.

"I'll take that as a no," he muttered and then looked up.

In front of him, Spots had sidled up next to Cloud, giving Daine and Numair a chance to whisper together. Jack looked at their backs, swaying in time with each other and their horses, and felt his heart warm almost to bursting. He was so screwed. He’d fallen hard and fast. But there was nothing for it, really: this wasn’t a world that allowed any sort of polyamory whatsoever. To try would be to destroy them, and he couldn’t bear that.

Maybe, if he stayed, he could figure out the rules. Or he could figure out how not to hurt them.

 He watched them fondly. They were darling, Daine and Numair, so terribly sincere, so gentle, and madly in love with each other. They were formidable, too, he with his magic and she with her animals. Jack always did like the capable ones. As he watched, Numair reached over and swept one of Daine's curls behind her ear. Jack sighed.

"They're quite the pair," George said lowly. Jack nearly leapt out of his saddle.

George had edged his horse near Red, and was watching him, eyes keen and clever. He knew, Jack realized, surprised. George had known almost from the moment that Jack did. How had he known? Was it that Sight thing again?

George’s eyes went merry as Jack stared at him, almost as if he could read Jack’s mind.

It was definitely the Sight thing.

There was hope for Jack yet.

"I feel like they belong together in a castle somewhere," Jack admitted. "Or back in that nice tower, not out here killing creatures from another world."

"You underestimate them," Alanna said. Her magnificent warhorse was on the other side of George's chestnut, powerful neck arching in a stately walk while Alanna peered over her husband's shoulder. "Together, they won a war for us."

Jack smiled. "I believe it," he replied, glancing back at them. Daine was laughing at something Numair said, and as Numair looked at her Jack could see a bright, adoring gleam in his eye. Jack didn’t do jealous – it was an outdated concept in the world that had shaped him, built from archaic and frankly condescending values – but he did do wistful. He contained another sigh.

He wondered about Ianto, and that door Owen had told him about. Owen had said that George had spoken to Ianto, hadn’t he? George hadn’t mentioned it.

“You spoke to Ianto, a few nights ago,” Jack said lowly, just to George.

George sighed. “Yes,” he said, resigned. “Gainel told me to keep quiet, and that your Owen Harper would relay that. I haven’t seen him since, I’m afraid.”

Jack had figured as much. He nodded. “Yeah,” he whispered. “Something about a door—Owen told me he tried to fly through it.”

 The goal had been to change the subject, but he failed rather spectacularly; the wound Ianto had left still hurt, after all. But in this time and place, where there were friends and adventures to be had, Jack found something strange.

He was still worried, of course. Something terrible might have happened to Ianto, and dead or not, that frightened him. But besides that—

That wound. That Torchwood-shaped wound that wouldn’t heal. It felt—well, it hurt like hell, but it wasn’t—raw. He wasn’t sure what was on his face; the cheer must have dropped. He felt—he didn’t know what he felt. Still upset, and terribly worried about Ianto and that door, but also—puzzled.   

George was looking at him oddly. "I didn’t hear anything about that,” he said.

That probably wasn’t good. "I didn't hear from Owen, last night," Jack admitted.

"Do you think they could've found something?" Alanna asked, and Jack felt even more unease slide down his spine.

"I don't know," he said, turning to look out into the woods.


	20. Chapter 19

There was a loud _crack_ in the distance, and Daine winced.

Night had fallen, and she was sitting in the darkness with Kitten at her side and Numair's head in her lap. Jack and Alanna had gone hunting for the second time. Daine hadn’t wanted to be present when they killed weevils, so she and George were watching camp. Numair, now even more exhausted from opening that crack for the Chaos-thing, had fallen asleep. George had wandered off to hunt for dinner.  

Feeling slightly useless and frustrated, she braided some of Numair's loose hair, which was long enough to brush past his shoulders if he ever were to let it down. Daine had undone the rough bit of leather that held it, for lack of anything better to do.

She had called the weevils for hours and received no answer. Hearing Jack’s revolver give its great noise the first time was not pleasant. It hurt, somewhere in the pit of her heart, and since then she feared to call for them again. The revolver had been giving its loud cry all evening.

Numair, as though sensing her distress, murmured quietly in his sleep, curling around her crossed knee. She smiled at him, undid the plait, and stroked the curve of his ear. He sighed, and his breath warmed her knees.

Daine, Cloud's voice warned softly. And then, more alarmed, _Daine!_

She turned at her pony's insistence and met a set of small, deep-set eyes. There was a weevil crouched in the brush on the edge of camp, watching her. Kitten startled with squeak. When she saw it she shot to Daine’s side, afraid. Daine laid a hand on the dragon's back.

 _Scared!_ The weevil told her. It must have been young, Daine thought uneasily. It seemed smaller than the others she had seen. 

But she saw its teeth, and remembered that she had to be authoritative.

"Come here," she ordered, quiet but firm. The creature crept closer, lowing softly. Daine did not allow herself to think of her family here—her beloved Numair fast asleep and vulnerable in her lap, her young charge cowering behind her. Instead she was the pack leader; if she was authoritative, this creature would not dare to attack her.

_Dead/frightened/home_

It watched her as it crept closer, steps unsure. It looked back over its shoulder and then lowed, cringing away from Daine.

Good, she told it silently, for fear of waking Numair or, worse, bringing the creature to Jack's attention. How can you get home?

_Difficult_

How do you do it? Daine demanded. Show me. Go home.

The creature lowed again and drew back. It tossed up its head and howled, like a wolf, and Daine felt a flicker of fear—Jack or Alanna might hear it! But then something happened.

The air split in two. Golden light speared from nothing, or from the very fabric of the world and reality cracked. It made a sick feeling swoop in Daine’s stomach, wrong in a way that was visceral, and it jarred on her magical vision.

 The crack drew apart and Daine could see distant lights within. Kitten sat up, staring, jaws opening and closing, as though she wanted to say something but could not quite get the words out.

 _Home!_ the weevil said, looking back nervously at Daine. She felt a confusing mixture of relieved and sick.

Go, Daine ordered, and the creature wasted no time; it ducked through the crack in the world and then vanished; the crack sealed as soon as it was through. Her stomach heaved, but when she gasped for air, the nausea went away as quickly as it had come.

"Oh," Daine breathed, and then she laughed, rousing Numair as Kitten squeaked back at her. "Oh, oh, _oh!_ "

"Wha…?" he asked, blinking at her blearily. Daine beamed at him and swooped down to kiss him, long and enthusiastic and he responded, sleepy and bemused. When she pulled away he followed, sitting up with her, murmuring in protest when she pushed him back gently.

"What was that about?" he asked, but he smiled, reaching to cup her cheek.

“I’ve figured it out!” Daine said.

“Figured what out?”

"How they got here. Numair, the weevils can open the world!" she breathed, and Numair stared.

“I—what?”

“They can open up a crack,” she said. “Across worlds. It’s how they got here, how they got _there--_ Numair, we can send them home without killing them!” Daine gently extracted herself from him, despite his muffled protests.

"I have to find Jack," she said, "I have to tell him!"

Numair sat up again, alarmed. "I’ll come with you—"

She pushed him back down. “No. You have to sleep.”

“What? Why?”

“Because someone has to be asleep,” she said. “Someone has to tell Gainel.”

"Are you insane?" Numair demanded, catching her hand. "Why? We can get George to tell him!"

"Numair," Daine said firmly, placing her hands on his shoulders. "I'll be fine. I promise. George is still in the woods. It has to be you." He gave her a melting, sad look. She leaned in and kissed him softly, and brushed her nose against his affectionately. He sighed, closing his eyes.

"How am I supposed to sleep if I'm not only worried but also have to relay information?" he asked, nuzzling back.

"You've managed before," Daine said wryly and kissed his cheek, rising. Numair sighed and curled up into a ball.

"Hurry back," he said, relenting. "And be careful, sweets."

"I always am," she said and then shifted her shape into that of a bat, winging off into the night.

\---

Red snorted uneasily as he picked his way through the glade.

"You insisted on coming," Jack reminded his horse in a whisper. Alanna rolled her eyes.

"I don't know what Daine's done to him," she muttered, walking shoulder to shoulder with Jack. "He's completely besotted with you." It was rather sweet, though, for what it was worth.

"I have that affect on people," Jack said with a charming grin. He was laying it on a bit thick. Alanna rolled her eyes again.

Red froze. He gave a very soft, high pitched squeal, ears pricked. Jack and Alanna crouched, readying their weapons. Jack glanced at his horse.

"Neigh," he ordered. Red rolled an eye at him. Jack seemed to be inspiring a lot of eye-rolling tonight. "You volunteered to be bait," he reminded the gelding. "Neigh. Sound afraid."

Red sighed deeply, and Alanna sniggered. "He's right, you know," she told the horse.

Red gave them both a long-suffering look, and then whinnied loudly. Silence. And then—

"There!" Jack hissed and darted away. Alanna drew a bow, but she wasn't fast enough; two loud _cracks_ and the creature fell with a _thud._

"That thing is unfair," she muttered as Jack walked off and dragged the dead weevil out of a bush. "I didn't even have time to draw my bow."

"Twentieth century craftsmanship," Jack said, patting the weapon. "It's quaint, but I like it. It's the recoil, I think; lasers aren't nearly as satisfying." And with that nonsensical statement, he grinned, but it faded. He looked down at the dead weevil. "I'd really rather not kill them, though. Daine's right; they can't help what they are. Still." He hoisted the creature up onto his shoulder and then slung it onto Red's back, despite the horse's snort of protest, "I suppose the job's the job."

"I didn't reach my station by going against the gods," Alanna agreed, but she spared the dead weevil a sympathetic glance.

"Mm. George said the Goddess chose you?" Jack asked, scouting the area with sharp eyes. "Haven't met the Goddess yet."

Alanna gave him a one shouldered shrug. "She gave me my gemstone. Shouldn't we be being quiet?"

"Nah," Jack said, raising his voice. "They're attracted to blood and death. Fear, too, I think, but not as much. Both of us sitting here with a big horse, we make pretty good bait."

"And why did we not try that last night?"

Red snorted, clearly not appreciating the sentiment. Jack patted his neck. "Not gonna let anything happen to you, buddy," he said easily, and then winced a little. Alanna glanced at him, a little concerned that he might downward spiral again, but he seemed to have composed himself.

"Anyway," Jack muttered, but he didn't say anything else.

Promises he couldn’t keep, Alanna thought. She knew what that felt like. "You alright?" she asked anyway.

"Fine," Jack replied. "C'mon, let's go deeper." He crashed up ahead. Alanna sighed and followed behind the big gray gelding, watching their backs. She knew better than to push, by now. Still, she thought humorlessly to herself, these secret pains of his were getting annoying. Not that she didn't sympathize, but honestly, they couldn't help if they didn't know.

Alanna was no fool. She knew Ianto Jones was just the beginning – there was something else behind Jack's guarded eyes. Something to do with children; that Chaos thing had called him _childkiller_ … It was a terrible sentiment. Perhaps there had been some sort of accident…? But it was pointless to speculate. Jack would either tell her, or not tell her; either way, imagining anything up would do little good.  

The bat came out of nowhere. Alanna squawked in surprise when it fluttered around her head, squeaking frantically.

"Daine?" she demanded, startled, thoughts effectively derailed.

"Alanna!" the bat squealed. "You need to tell Jack—I figured out how the weevils got here!"

Red whinnied and Jack, ahead of them, turned. "What is it?" he asked.

"Daine's followed us," Alanna said, holding out a hand so Daine could cling to her finger, upside down. Jack regarded the bat.

"You're supposed to be at camp," he told her, frowning.

"I found out how the weevils got here!" the bat said, all delight. "They can go from world to world, just like I told you before, Jack."

"And I told you," Jack replied, "that that's impossible. You can't just slip dimensions!"

"Yes, but I saw it. Look, I'll show you." The bat fluttered from Alanna's hand and changed; a wolf stood in front of the Lioness and called with Daine's voice, "You there! Jack, don't shoot him."

A weevil stepped out from behind a tree, lowing and cringing even as it stepped towards the wolf.

"Go home," she ordered, baring her teeth and raising her hackles. "Go on, get out of here! _Go home!_ "

The weevil twisted and shrugged reluctantly but Daine bore down on it, growling and snarling. Lowing, it backed away and then howled; Jack and Alanna gaped, and Red squealed in alarm. Golden light hissed from nowhere and reality yawned into a crack, which the weevil stepped though and vanished. The wolf turned back to them triumphantly. "See?" Daine beamed, inasmuch as a wolf can beam.

"We—we don't have to kill them," Alanna whispered.

"More than that!" Daine cried, voice hoarse and wolf-like from excitement.

"You think they can help us find the Guardian," Jack breathed. Daine howled in agreement.


	21. Chapter 20

Numair was trying very hard to sleep. He had his eyes closed, and he was attempting not to think, but his mind would not keep still.

_The weevils can travel worlds._

_The weevils can travel worlds._

_I have to tell Gainel._

_I hope Daine will be safe, curse her, she's going to come back bleeding, I just know it._

_The animals will protect her, won't they? What if Jack shoots her by accident?_

_Don't be stupid. She'll be fine. Think of something else._

_Like the weevils._

_Which have large teeth. And Daine can barely hold them._

_Shakith curse it. I hope she's okay._

_Concentrate, Arram._

_The weevils can travel worlds._

_The weevils can travel worlds._

_The weevils—_

"—can travel worlds." He blinked.

Gainel, the Dream God himself, was standing there, and there was a man next to him. He was a study of contrasts: pale skin with dark hair and eyes, clothing unmistakably leather, but cured oddly. The man's face was wide with high cheekbones, and his curly hair was cropped short.

"What did you just say?" he demanded, accent strange to Numair's ears.

"The weevils can travel worlds," Numair repeated. "You must be Owen Harper."

 _\--Can they cross realms?—_ Gainel asked immediately, not questioning the information.

"I have no idea," Numair replied. "Has something happened?"

"You better believe it, buddy," the man that Numair thought was Owen said. "We found the Guardian."

"You found the—" Numair echoed and then, slowly, began to smile.

"Don't look so happy," the man snapped. "They're stuck Elsewhere; they can't get out. There's two Coldfangs after them, and the Guardian's dying."

Well. That was terrible. "So we need the weevils. Now."

"Yes," the man said. "Now."

Gainel turned to Owen. _\--Tell the others,--_ he ordered, and the man paled.

"There’s a Coldfang—" he said desperately.

\-- _Owen Harper, you will do as you are told,--_ Gainel growled, wrapping power around himself like a cloak. _–Everything rests upon this, do you understand? Everything. You must tell the others. I need to speak to my brothers and sisters. Numair Salmalin, you must wake up.—_

Before Numair could get a word in edgewise, he felt his body start as though struck by lightning. He shot up, gasping.

From the trees, George Cooper crashed into the spell circle, looking wild and winded. He held a dead rabbit by its feet, and his eyes were wide.  

"The weevils," George gasped, "they travel worlds."

"I know," Numair said. "Now move! We have to find the others."

George dashed over and dropped the rabbit. He went straight to his pack and grabbed several knives and thrusted them up his sleeves. "Can't be too prepared," he said.

Numair nodded and held out one hand, palm down. Black fire gathered around it. It pulled something deep within him, like stepping with a sore calf muscle, but he did not care. He could rest later—it was his own fault for trying to stop a natural force like lightning anyway. It seemed so long ago, but the effects of something like that could last for months. He turned his hand over.

"Daine," he said into the fire in his palm.

"Numair?" Jack's voice, echoed by Daine and Alanna.

"Daine, you have to get one of the weevils to open a crack, or whatever it is they do," he said urgently. "Rikash, Tosh, and Ianto have found the Guardian, but he's dying. They can't get out of the spaces between realms, and if they don't, the Guardian will die. Come back to camp, you need—"

He was interrupted by a string of swears from the three of them; by the time both Daine and Alanna had run out, Jack was still going, speaking languages from planets that Numair was sure were beyond any of their imaginations.

"We'll be there right away," Alanna said over Jack's horrified voice.

"I don’t know if I can get enough of them," Daine added darkly. "They’re harder to call if they’re not close: I’m going to run a bit and see if I can find some. It’ll be easier as a wolf. I’ll try to bring them back to camp. I don't know if they can get to the spaces between, but—"

"We're going to try," Jack interrupted her, firmly. “Now go.”

Numair closed the spell.

"Now we wait?" George asked, pacing around the dwindling fire pit.

"Now we wait," Numair said, moving to join him.

\---

Rikash spiraled lower, as close to the Guardian as he dared, and the two Coldfangs hissed and snarled. Ianto saw their purple tongues slide in and out of their wide mouths, and he scrabbled against Rikash’s hold.

"Bad idea, _bad_ idea!" Ianto cried when they got too close, and Rikash spiraled up again.

"I'm not a dog," Rikash muttered, but he sounded amused, despite the dire situation.

"Of course not," Tosh agreed with her own brand of sarcasm. "Is there _anything_ else we can do?"

The Guardian was down, lying still on his side against the colorless ground, and he looked to be flickering, fading like a bad hologram. He had become transparent, and now seemed hardly able to lift his head. The two Coldfangs paced around him in a circle, guarding him, rattling the bones on the ends of their tails.

"I don't think so," Rikash said. "Not unless Owen gets help."

"What I wouldn't do for a comm," Tosh said, referring to the communications device they had used at Torchwood.

"Think we're a bit out of range," Ianto said dryly.

"Just a bit," Tosh agreed, and there was a brief silence.

One of the Coldfangs stopped pacing and hissed, mouth opening so that its extra fangs dropped. The second stopped as well, tail rattling ominously.

"Oi!" said Owen's voice as he stood on the edges of their possessive circle. "I'm here by order of the dream god Gainel, and I'm not here to steal your bloody treasure, so _back the fuck off._ "

"Owen!" Tosh called, and Ianto squeezed her tighter.

Owen strode closer, but the nearest Coldfang hissed, snapping its jaws threateningly. He stopped short, staring into its eyes as if hypnotized.

"Numair Salmalin spoke to me," Owen said softly, but it was so quiet in the strange in-between place that his voice carried without a problem, even over the harsh rattling of the Coldfangs' tails. Ianto heard Tosh catch her breath. "He said that they have weevils in Tortall, and they can travel across worlds." The Coldfang stalked him, watching his eyes, tail hissing alarmingly.

"Owen—" Ianto warned him, trying to snap him out of whatever spell the animal had cast.

"Veralidaine Sarrasri is calling them now," Owen continued in his flat monotone, eyes locked with the Coldfang. The creature weaved its head as it approached and Owen swayed slightly, as if to distant music. "Then they're going to try to help you."

"That's great, now you're going to want to _move_!" Rikash snapped, and the last word came out as an eagle's scream when the Coldfang lunged. Owen startled and leaped back.

"I'm not even alive, you moron!" he told the Immortal, although whether he was speaking to Rikash or the Coldfang was unclear. "And I'm under the dream god's—fuck _off!_ " he cried as the second one lunged at him. Owen disappeared angrily, presumably going back to Dream.

" _They're coming!"_ His voice echoed, and then only the rattles of the Coldfangs remained.

\---

"How can I let go of this? I bring life." The Bad Wolf blinks, and somewhere on the wrecked space station Jack Harkness gasps back to life for the first time. Somewhere else, everywhere else, he gasps back to life again into infinity, all in one moment. She wants him to live, and so live he does; she can see him now, through all of time and space. So alone, like her poor Doctor.

 _But this is wrong!_ The Doctor cries, his voice so important that it echoes across Everything. _You can't control life and death!_

"But I can," Rose says simply, taking all of her effort to focus on him, only him, even though part of her is, was, will always be elsewhere. "The sun and the moon. The day and the night. But why do they hurt?"

And they do, they hurt, a thin, wailing note of discord winds through them all: the Doctor's loneliness eclipsed by her friend's, and she never meant to hurt Jack.

 _The power's gonna kill you and it's my fault,_ the Doctor moans, and his pain is so intense, so wrong, that she is helpless to think of anything else.

Yet everything else pounds into her head, so much information. Suns and moons and one universe, two universes, three, four, a beach called Darlig ulv Strandon and _The Big Bad Wolf,_ Jack Harkness sitting on a rooftop wishing that jumping would kill him—

She didn't mean to hurt anyone.

"I can see everything. All that is. All that was. All that ever could be—"

_But that's what I see. All the time. And doesn't it drive you mad?_

She loves him. God, god, she loved this man, this Time Lord, who thought he had destroyed his world for the sake of the universe.

It’s more complicated than that, of course. But he can’t know that yet.

"My head… is killing me…"

The Bad Wolf is too much for one body, and as her power destroys her mortal form, spiraling out of control, anchoring her back to liner Time, she suddenly understands why the universe hurts, and why Jack does, too.

She reaches, once, and the Doctor kisses her, pulling the Time Vortex out of Rose Tyler's body. Father Universe wails and Queen Uusoae shrills with laughter when Rose forces her way into a distant pocket universe; she can do nothing for the Doctor and she mourns, grieves, and rages inside, but Jack will get a gift, just one, just the one, to ease the hurt—

With that last effort, she collapses into her Doctor's arms, all thoughts of her lost friend wiped from her mind. The Time Lord releases the energy that the human girl had absorbed, and staggers with her back to his time ship, abandoning Jack Harkness, newly immortal, centuries younger, on an empty space station called Satellite Five.


	22. Chapter 21

It took some looking. The weevils were not stupid, and they’d been evading Jack and Alanna for days. But Daine had not been giving it her all: knowing that they would have to kill the weevils, she’d hung back, rather than force them to walk into their deaths.

But now she needed them.

She ran wolf-fast and wolf-sure through the forest, and picked up their scent. They ran. She was faster. One she found running; she called him close. Another cowered beneath a log; she called her, too. The last she found scratching at a tree; he came, too. They fought, but Daine was determined. She pulled them and they came.

They followed Daine back to the camp, but it was slow going. She did not look at them. She focused, because the weevils were fast and clever and not quite animals. Still wolf shaped, Daine snarled and threatened and postured and cajoled them the entire back into camp. She felt worn-out by the time they got there, but she wasn’t exhausted yet.

Alanna and Jack were waiting on the edges, and they tensed visibly when she approached, a wolf trailed by three monsters. Daine brought the creatures past them, into camp. Once over the boarder of the protection spells, Numair, George and Kitten rushed to meet them. Daine avoided them. They were distracting, and if she lost her grip, they lost everything.

"Now you're gonna open the gates," Daine told the cowering creatures through bared teeth, her old Snowsdale accent peeking from her carefully learned cultured tones.

Numair rushed over with a cloak. Daine changed back into her human self, just as Cloud pushed her way through. She leaned against Daine’s back, and Daine accepted the support. She stood up straighter, taking the power offered from the pony. Distantly, Daine heard Kitten shrill in alarm but Numair scooped her up, quieting her.  

"Do it!" Daine growled, and the three weevils howled, long and loud. From the corner of her eye, Daine saw Jack with his revolver in his hand, prepared to shoot the creatures should they decide to go rogue.

Daine wouldn’t let them. She bore down harder. They fought. Once more, she told them to open the gate. Something, somewhere, gave way. They moaned.

Half in their minds, she felt them do it. It felt strange, like cutting parchment with a knife, except the parchment was gossamer thin, and the knife was barely there. It was easy to open the world, they told her, but it took practice to control where it went. She asked for a place that was harder than usual. It was an impossible place.

The world opened, light blazing from darkness.

"Jack."

The voice was male and firm. There was a transparent man who must have been Owen Harper, standing in their camp. He was had not been there, a moment before. Daine saw him more through the weevils than through her own eyes; the man was wrong to them, too strong, too dead. They moaned in fear, shying away from him; he curled his lip contemptuously before turning back to Jack.

"Two Coldfangs," he told Jack. "They're these lizard creatures—"

"We know," Alanna interrupted and he looked at her up and down, scowling.

"Right," he said at last. "I don't know how—"

The golden crack widened, and from between the gold edges, tendrils of darkness bloomed like a flower. It was wrong, and hideous, and somewhere inside herself, Daine felt sickness and horror wash through her heart.

\---

Rikash circled the Guardian slowly, like a vulture on a heat thermal. The Guardian was fading beneath him, and while it was not in the nature of a Stormwing to feel fear, anxiety was starting to seep in from his wingtips.

The Coldfangs hissed and rattled from below. He’d never liked Coldfangs, really. There was something disturbingly honorable about an enormous lizard who only ever wanted to protect a treasure, and honor always stuck in Rikash’s throat like an old bone.  

Honor, of course, was something of an embarrassment: Rikash had acquired honor, at some point, and it was hard to get rid of it. He tightened his claws in Ianto's shoulders.

There was no bone to crack, but he felt it shift all the same.  He was a soft-hearted old fool, but he rather liked Ianto—or at least, liked him enough to regret hurting him, if he had. Ianto seemed unbothered, though. "This was a terrible idea," Rikash muttered.

"There must be something we can do," Tosh said, and Rikash resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Humans and their hope.

"We can't kill them, being dead ourselves," Ianto drawled, "We can't really distract them, or stun them. We don't know the Guardian's name, and we don't know how to stop him from dying. We don't—"

"Well, you're just filled with good ideas, aren't you?" Rikash cut him off irritably. Tosh's hope was annoying, but Ianto certainly wasn't helping either.

"Owen said the others are coming," Ianto told him, looking up. Rikash looked down at his friend, clutching Tosh around the waist. He looked very small, and Rikash resisted the urge to tighten his claws again. Humans, even dead ones, were so fragile. "We can't do anything now, but they'll come. And when they come," he continued, "I am going to expect a bungee cable tied to his horn," here he gestured down to the Guardian, "and we are going to tow him out."

That sounded completely ridiculous. Silence descended. Rikash sighed and flapped his wings harder, trying to use the sound of his feathers to drown out the sound of the Coldfangs. The Guardian continued to fade.

Stormwings had little use for hope, Rikash thought sourly, except in the instances when it was shattered.

But sure enough, optimistic Ianto was not wrong. Golden light, bright and blinding, split through like a stain on the flat whiteness of the world. One strip of light tore up and the other tore down, opening a crack. Light blazed through and Rikash banked, suddenly terrified, because light like that should not have dark edges.

Rikash was a Stormwing. He had been born in the mortal world long ago, but he remembered being locked in the Divine Realms, when he was barely out of the nest. He knew what Chaos looked like. As a fledgling, he had almost fallen down a vent. There was something between the light and the darkness, something unexpected, and his Immortal eyes could see it clearly.

"That had better be your Jack Harkness," Rikash said, keeping the fear out of his voice. "Because if it's not—"

And then a voice he knew cut him off, and, stunned, he let it.  _"Rikash?"_

"Longshanks!" he blurted, recognizing Numair Salmalin with poorly-concealed shock. They'd done it. The land of the living, on the other side. The surge of joy he felt was unexpected.

Wasn't that typical, he thought. "Is Daine there?"

 _"She's a bit busy!"_ replied Numair, but he was clearly grinning.

 _"This isn't time for pleasantries, boys and girls!"_ called another voice, and Rikash heard Ianto catch his nonexistent breath. Ah, he thought dryly. Lover boy, then. _"Can you get the Guardian out?"_

Rikash looked down and saw the dopy grin that lit his friend's face as Ianto answered, "Not without alerting the Coldfangs, sir."

The Stormwing suppressed a snort. Honestly. Ianto Jones was far more sensible than most humans, but this was ridiculous. But he must be going soft, because his friend's joy made him want to vomit less than usual. Damned humans.

 _"We can take care of those!"_ came the reply, just as gleeful. Rikash rolled his eyes where no one could see him. He already knew Harkness was going to be the biggest pain in the backside since Ozorne Muhassin Tasikh had turned into a Stormwing and into Rikash's personal problem. _"We have two mages, a thief, and I have my revolver. Don't worry about it, Ianto Jones!"_

They were going to be unbearable. Did this mate of Ianto's not _think_? "You'll want to watch the thief, Harkness—" Rikash started to tell him, but then Tosh caught her breath and he cut himself off, looking down sharply.

"Ianto—" she said, and Rikash followed her eyes. The golden light had turned bronze, as the Thing between the worlds solidified and reached. It looked like nothing, it looked like everything, and Rikash knew Chaos for what it was. It reached once with an awful, dripping tentacle.

" _Rikash, up!_ " Ianto cried in horror, and Rikash was only too happy to oblige. The Thing hissed and coiled like a snake, crooning to itself horribly as it sat between worlds.

**He shan't get out.**   
**Oh, I got out,**   
**And out I'll stay.**   
**Let him die,**   
**Let him perish--**   
**He shan't get out.**

\---

Abruptly, Kitten started to twist in Numair’s grasp. She was staring at the darkness as it oozed out of the crack and gave a shriek.

“Shh, Kit, stop!" he hissed and then yelped when silver teeth closed on his arm. He dropped the dragon in shock – Kitten rarely bit without warning. She raced off to the packs, presumably to hide. Alanna made to follow, but Numair shook his head; best to be here. If Kitten wanted to hide, she could.

" _That had better be your Jack Harkness, you two, because if it's not—"_ The voice was whispery and coming from within the widening fissure, although there was no one to be seen. Numair recognized it at once.

"Rikash?" Numair called incredulously, and beyond the yawning, terrifying darkness there was a response, far more delighted than Numair had expected.

" _Longshanks! Is Daine there?"_

"She's a bit busy!" Numair replied, unable to hold back a grin. He wanted to hug Daine and spin her about, he wanted call Kitten over, but he held himself still. Daine needed all of her formidable will now—if the weevils broke free, all of their efforts will have been for nothing. This had to work. They could celebrate later.

"This isn't time for pleasantries, boys and girls!" Jack said. "Can you get the Guardian out?"

" _Not without alerting the Coldfangs, sir,"_ said another voice, a strange accent with soft rounded vowels, and Numair heard Jack's breath catch. That voice was familiar too, for all that Numair had heard it only once. He felt a surge of excitement for his friend.

"We can take care of those," Jack replied, and his voice cracked. Numair's foolish grin widened at the look on Jack’s face. "We have two mages, a thief," and here Jack winked at George, all unfeigned delight, "and I have my revolver. Don't worry about it, Ianto Jones!" His voice strengthened joyfully over the dead man's name.

Out of the corner of his eye, Numair saw Owen Harper roll his eyes.

" _You'll want to watch the thief, Harkness,"_ Rikash's voice started, but he was interrupted.

" _Ianto…"_ a woman's voice this time. It was Tosh, and Numair abruptly realized that he was an idiot because he’d forgotten to tell anyone about Tosh. Her voice was heavy with warning and then, frantic, Ianto's voice came again.

" _RIKASH, UP!"_

Something dark and awful curled from between worlds, and it glistened unpleasantly in Numair's magical vision. He took an involuntary step back, horrified. Jack hissed and Numair saw Red throw up his head, huffing and white-eyed.

Owen started to swear. "Screw it! You have to come through! The mages can call out the Guardian— _get out here!_ "

The people on the other side apparently ignored Owen's warning entirely, much to Jack's obvious distress, and Ianto's distinctive voice rang out, loud and clear. _"GUARDIAN OF THE GATES! GUARDIAN!"_

" _That's not going to work, you idiot!"_ This was Rikash, sounding breathless and terrified. Numair had never heard any Stormwing, let along his friend, sound so afraid.

"You heard Owen, get out!" Jack cried. Owen strode to the crack, flinching away from the darkness that curled like smoke from the mouth of the crevasse. He cursed again.

"Can they follow the Coldfangs out?" George demanded suddenly, striding forward, "'Cos I'd make a fair piece of bait for them." He walked up to the fissure.

" _Don't--!_ " Owen lunged and made to grab George, but he was insubstantial; he passed straight through. The darkness, like a living thing, snaked out and snapped at George, curling like the arm of an octopus. George had quick reflexes; he leaped back at Alanna's cry of alarm and the arm grasped at nothing.

"Trickster's teeth," George gasped, expressing Numair's thoughts perfectly. "What the—"

"It's a Chaos thing," Owen said quickly. "It's a Chaos thing--no--no it's The Chaos Thing--and it's blocking their way out—"

 _Chaos._ Now that they had a name for it, it was fairly obvious. Numair's mind immediately began whirling, remembering the thing they’d seen before Mynoss had destroyed it:  Daine's stories and his own experience, remembering books he'd read, accounts and magic—how did one fight a Chaos thing?

The answer was the same as it always was. One didn't.

" _Numair! Numair Salmalin!"_ Tosh’s voice rung out from behind the crack, even as darkness poured out of it. The hissing, foggy nothingness landed like a solid thing on the ground, curling like mist, shape growing, changing, reaching up. _"Do you still have that storage receptacle?"_

"Yes, but I couldn't fix it!" Numair called back to her. "It won't—it won't provide life support!" He paused for a moment and then thought to distract the thing, maybe pull it through, so they could get the Guardian out. He called up his Gift, and hissed one of the nastiest curses he knew over Jack's shout of protest.

It didn’t work, of course. Occasionally, Numair thought abstractly, he was very stupid. 

The dark Thing grabbed his Gift and _pulled._ Numair staggered forward in shock as the Thing drew his magic like blood from a wound. Terror, real, honest terror suddenly wrenched at him. It was the Nepthalae all over again, only this time it was forced; something was pulling his life out of him and he couldn't breathe. His whole world narrowed as he fought and struggled and _lost_.

Suddenly something purple grasped him and pulled back; Alanna had yanked his shoulder, preventing him from falling face first into the weevil's fissure and the dark thing twining below it. Nausea clawed at his throat and he swayed. Dark spots danced in front of his eyes. Numair staggered away, staring at the Thing in horror.

It was sick, wrong, more wrong than the Skinners or that thing in the woods, more wrong than his awful memories of distant Carthak. He wanted Daine and he wanted to hide. Most importantly, he wanted to throw up, but someone was speaking.

That would be rude, he thought woozily, to throw up in the middle of a speech.

"Who _cares_?" Owen was shouting. "Get it, get rid of this thing!" He leaped back as the Thing rose again, stretching up tall and slender. Numair wondered where the dead man got his energy.

Numair swayed, and the dark Thing that had stolen his power spoke in a voice that tore broken fingernails down his spine.

 **"The mortal realms!"** it crooned, somehow feminine, and Numair knew without knowing what it was. He knew instinctively, the way terror knows its object, that this was not just Chaos but its Queen. The weevils keeping the Gate open outright wailed in fear, trying to run; Daine would not let them, although her eyes darted frightfully to Numair. He tried to smile at her, to reassure his frightened magelet, but unfortunately he was too terrified to even do that. The Thing spoke again and he wanted to vomit all the more. **"Oh, how _fondly_ I remember it here—"**

Kitten, behind them, shrieked.

 **"Little dragon—"** the darkness hissed, changing shape and form, eyes and nose and ears and mouth of every creature, oozing, horrible.

Queen Uusoae reached out a tendril to the dragon, and over Jack's shout of warning, Daine’s barking, weevil-like call, Numair's panicked, horrified yell, George's thrown knife and Alanna's war cry, Kitten howled triumphantly, because there was the little box from the Nepthalae ship in her hands, small and black. She turned a knob, and green light shone from one end. It brightened and brightened and the limb that had reached for her recoiled. The Queen of Chaos shrieked in fury, but, Numair thought in the small part of his brain that wasn’t frantic with terror, she had never seen anything like this. The receptacle had come from beyond the world, and beyond the gods.

It was new. 

It shined so bright it hurt the eyes, and then it winked out. Numair blinked spots from his vision, but the great Chaos Queen was gone. Numair's power returned with enough speed to wind him. He choked, staggering.

" _NOW, RIKASH!"_ Ianto's voice rang from behind the crack and there was a sound like dry leaves crackling—a Coldfang's rattle—and the snap of heavy jaws.

Something blurry shot out from the crack, trailing something orange, spiraling up into the pre-dawn sky. It was a Stormwing, Numair thought woozily, with some kind of bright orange rope. The Stormwing flapped and flapped its steel wings, reflecting the sun, and pulling hard on the rope.

It yanked once, and again, and then fell back into the air like a kite that had just had a long line of string let loose.

The beast lumbered out of the fissure, the orange rope tied to one of the huge ram's horns that curled from behind its ears. It as easily three times Numair’s size. It brayed like a goat, stumbling and blinking into the light, and gave an angry growl as Rikash Moonsword dropped the other end of the strange cable onto its head.

And then, before the Tortallans could move back to accommodate, the Coldfangs lunged, leaping from the crack with their mouths agape.

Kitten shrilled harshly, but two loud _cracks_ from Jack's revolver did the trick; both fell, dead, half in and half out of the fissure.

"Daine, close it!" Rikash called from above.

"You heard him!" Daine shouted at the weevils, "Close it, and go home! Get out of here, go!"

Three voices lowed and bayed up into the sky and the crack sealed itself closed, shining bright bronze light. The weevils howled again, a different note, harmonizing, and a second crack crunched open. Blinking lights and some kind of horn sounded from the other side, and the weevils staggered through almost at a run.  

Daine, gasping with exhaustion, keeled to one side. Numair felt terrible but he would never let her fall: he lunged to catch her before she could slide down from her pony's flank.


	23. Chapter 22

"Daine!" Numair lunged over, stumbling with his own weakness. He seemed disoriented, but he reached Daine and her pony. She smiled at him as he took her in his arms, murmuring quietly in her ear.

Alanna glanced at them with concern, afraid that Numair would topple over with Daine's extra weight. The mage looked a wreck and Daine looked worse, but someone had to deal with their new visitors. She glanced uneasily to George, and her husband spared her a nod. "Guardian," he said, turning to the great creature.

The Guardian of the Gates rose to its full height, over three times even Numair’s size. It was man-shaped with ram's horns and matted fur. The massive tail lashed and the gray fur bristled, and as the creature stood straight it became apparent that he was very male. He reached up to one of his great, curling horns and untied the strange orange rope, staring at it briefly, as if perplexed.

He bleated like a goat, turned and looked up to the air. The Stormwing Rikash hovered slightly above the tree line, looking down at them. He had his talons lodged into the shoulder of a man. Alanna recognized Ianto Jones, who did not seem bothered by the claws imbedded into his shoulder muscle. He held a strange woman with an arm around her waist.

"Rikash!" Daine called weakly, curled in the protective circle of Numair's arms.

Jack remained beside Red, silent, eyes locked on the man Rikash was holding. Ianto stared back and as Alanna watched, Jack's face lit in a slow smile that looked more genuine than any expression Alanna had seen on the man's face previously.

"Good to see you, Daine," Rikash said, grinning back. Ianto Jones, clutched in his claws, tore his eyes from Jack and looked up.

"I should like to feel the ground, I think. It's been a rather long time," he drawled in a long-suffering sort of voice. Jack let out a bark of laughter, and the woman Ianto held around the waist giggled as well. Owen Harper, still transparent and standing next to the place where the crack in the world had been, grinned up at them, unabashed.

The Guardian of the Gates brayed at the Stormwing.

"You're free now," Ianto told the creature awkwardly after a moment of silence.

 "Thanks ever so, Ianto, I'm sure he never would've known that otherwise," Rikash bit.

The Guardian cocked his head at them and turned to the Tortallans. He bleated at them.

"I can't understand you," Daine said apologetically, resting against Numair, who had started to sway alarmingly. The massive creature stomped a clawed foot, digging into the ground.

"Now what?" the strange woman asked.

"Rikash puts us down," Ianto said firmly, "And introductions are in order, I think."

"—I should probably go get Gainel." Owen put in and the woman in Ianto’s arms beamed down at him.

"That would probably be helpful, yes," Jack said, finally shaking himself out of his daze. He stepped from Red's side and crouched down next to Kitten.  From the corner of her eye, Alanna saw Owen nod to himself and disappear.

"How did you fix that?" Jack asked Kit, carefully taking the receptacle from the dragon. Thin wisps of black and green smoke issued alarmingly from the small black box. It looked like someone had thrown something unpleasant into a fire.

"That was me," the woman called cheerfully from where Ianto was holding her, startling the Guardian. The great creature jumped and Alanna jumped with him, still on edge. With some amusement, she noticed that George had started as well. "And Numair, of course, right, Numair?" She grinned down at the mage.

Alanna blinked and looked from the woman to Numair and back again. Who on earth was she?

Daine and Numair had sunk to the ground together, apparently without the strength between them to keep standing. "The most informative dream I've ever had," the mage replied with a wobbly smile up at her. Kitten squawked indignantly. "Thank you, Tosh. Of course, Kit did the quick thinking," Numair added. The dragon preened a little.

Numair had dreamed of her? And he hadn’t told anyone? Apparently reading Alanna's mind, Jack blurted, “You never said you contacted Tosh.”

Numair winced. “I forgot,” he said sheepishly.

Alanna closed her eyes. Numair was brilliant, but he was also a _complete idiot._ How had he managed to forget something this important? Another person from Jack’s Torchwood! It wasn’t like forgetting a messenger bird. It was _much worse_. 

“You _forgot?_ ” Jack demanded, and Daine dissolved into woozy giggles. She did not sound good. 

Jack frowned. “Are you alright?” he asked, earlier indignance forgotten. He took a step towards them, still holding the box. Black and green smoke twined around his hand.

“Fine, fine,” Daine gasped, still giggling. It wasn’t especially convincing. Jack made to go over to them, all concern, but Numair shook his head.

“Fine,” he said, hugging Daine. “Disoriented. Really. Fine."

Jack ignored their protests and walked over to them anyway. He crouched next to them and put a hand on Numair’s shoulder. He couldn’t give any sort of aid, but Alanna could: she picked her way over and reached for Numair’s other shoulder.

“No,” he said firmly. “No power. I’m fine. Really, Alanna.”

“You’re not fine,” Alanna told him. “You’re an idiot.” She pinched his ear, but relented when he yelped. Moving away, she scooped the box out of Jack’s hand. It was unpleasantly warm, and the smoke felt—tacky, somehow, like gum or glue. Very carefully, she put it on the ground beside the mages. Alanna looked up to the hovering Stormwing. "You found the Guardian,” she told them, “All of you. Thank you."

"Yes, you're welcome," Rikash muttered sullenly, but Ianto rolled his eyes.

"I think you did a decent job of getting us out of there, so let's call it even. Are you ever going to put us down, or am I going to grow old up here?" The last was directed to Rikash, who growled, but descended.

"You can't grow old, you idiot, you're dead," he said.

"Oh, I think we fixed that problem," Jack put in, grinning. He rose from his crouch and strolled past the Guardian, who flinched from him. Jack didn't seem to notice, but Alanna certainly did.

Rikash flapped his wings frantically. When he got close to the ground, he pulled his talons out of Ianto’s shoulder. It didn’t make a sound, but Ianto and the woman called Tosh collapsed into a protesting heap. There was no blood, so that was something, and neither of them seemed to be in any pain.

" _Ground!_ " the Stormwing said with obvious relish, drifting gently down and landing with claws extended while Daine and Numair grinned at him dopily from where they were sitting. "I never thought I'd miss solid, obvious—"

"Please get out of the way," Tosh said sharply, picking herself and Ianto up off the ground. Ianto’s shoulder bore no wound at all. Rikash stared at her and Jack whooped with bright, joyous laughter and broke into a run; he dodged around the Stormwing and made to sweep Ianto and then the stranger called Tosh up into his arms in a display of such glee that he seemed like an entirely different man. Was that the sort of person Jack had been, once upon a time?  

It was not to be. Ianto gave a yelp, and Jack's startled, dismayed sound followed soon after.

"We're insubstantial," Tosh said miserably, and Alanna wanted to rage on behalf of her friend. George laid a hand on her shoulder, correctly reading her expression.

"Of course we're insubstantial," Ianto said bitterly, sharing a longing glance with Jack.

There wasn’t quite a burst of light, but Owen strolled through from nothing. "Yeah, I thought that might happen," he said, walking up to them. Tosh glared at him.

"I thought you were going to get Gainel," Alanna said. Her first impression of Owen had been instant and vehement dislike, and it hadn’t changed. Since there was no particular reason for it, she held her tongue. "Well?"

"I'll have you know, _Lioness,_ " Owen huffed and Alanna felt that dislike curdle at his mocking tone, "That the Great Gods are having some sort of meeting—"

The Guardian interjected: he brayed with what sounded like joy, interrupting Owen.

A woman, hooded and cloaked but still clearly feminine, had materialized where none had stood before. She had appeared without fanfare, and without any sort of fuss. Alanna recognized her instantly and dropped to one knee.

"Goddess!" she gasped.

"—Which exists in a different plain of existence than this one, so we may be in two places at once, Owen Harper. Hello, Guardian of the Gates. It is quite an honor."

The Guardian bleated at her.

The Tortallans and Owen followed Alanna’s example, but from the corner of her eye she saw that Jack, stubbornly, had remained standing. She wanted to roll her eyes. While he had reason to be frustrated with the other gods, Alanna’s patron had done him no harm.

But she was gratified to see that, after a moment’s deliberation, Ianto and Tosh strolled over to stand next to Jack. Rebellious they may be, at least they were together.

"Greetings, my daughter," the Mother Goddess told Alanna warmly. She was apparently ignoring Jack and his people and their disrespect. Probably for the best, Alanna thought. The Goddess inclined her head to Daine. "Your parents send their best, Godborn, but as it is neither midsummer, midwinter, nor the equinoxes, they cannot be here with me."

"Thank you," Daine replied, looking her in the eye as few mortals dared. It was not often that Alanna was reminded that her friend was a Godborn, but sometimes it was frighteningly apparent. Alanna swallowed. "Send them my love."

"I will. Now,” she said, turning to Jack, “my brother is most cross with you, Jack Harkness, as are my parents." A shudder slipped down Alanna’s spine. She’d always had a good relationship with the Goddess, in that the she guided her, and Alanna listened. The very idea of having that kind of power turned against her was terrifying.

The Goddess looked Jack up and down, and then her eyes slid to Ianto, Tosh, and Rikash. "You did not do as we asked."

"I got rid of the weevils and found the Guardian. That sounds like what you wanted me to do," Jack growled, all defiance. It really was no way to talk to a god. Alanna wasn’t sure if she was indignant on behalf of her patron, or impressed at Jack’s nerve. "Actually, _they_ found the Guardian, so I think you should thank them nicely. How do corporal bodies sound?"

She was leaning towards impressed, but it was going to get him—well, not killed, but hurt, at least. " _Jack!_ " Alanna hissed.

"Your impertinence is not appreciated, Lone Wolf," the Mother Goddess replied, and there was a note of baying hunting hounds in her voice. Alanna shivered again. "You did not kill those creatures that dared set foot in these realms, and you used them to tear holes in the Universe—this Universe and the next. The consequences were dire; my Father sickens, and Chaos threatens."

That sounded very bad, Alanna reflected, so horrified that she was almost amused. She’d never felt the wrath of a god before, but there was a first time for everything.

Numair cleared his throat. Alanna darted a glance to him

He looked terrible. Still on the ground, Numair was disheveled and paler than the tunic he was wearing. He clutched at Daine, but it seemed to be more toward the effort of not falling flat on his back than anything else. "With all due respect," he managed. The poor man looked scared to death. "We have caught Chaos, or at least a part of her, Goddess." He scooped up the receptacle, and held it out, an offering. He didn’t get up. Alanna doubted that he could.

"What is this?" the Mother asked, striding towards the mage, and reaching for the small black box. When her first finger touched it, it sparked, issuing a great gout of black smoke.

Alanna winced.

The Goddess flinched back with an angry sound. She whirled on Jack. "This is alien! This is alien craftsmanship, in the hands of one of our mortals!"

"Scavenged from the ship that _you_ destroyed," Jack snapped, blue eyes flaming. Fear shot through Alanna – he’d been mouthing off at the Goddess, but this was a different tone.  Nobody talked to gods like that and survived. Jack must be mad.

Well. She was fairly mad too, come to that.  

"It just saved our lives—all of us, I think," Jack continued and looked around to Daine and Numair and George, meeting Alanna's horrified eyes for a moment before moving on to Owen, Ianto, Tosh, and Rikash. "Even the Guardian. It's a storage receptacle. We repaired it and used it to imprison your Queen of Chaos."

The Goddess looked at him for a long, tense moment.  She turned back to Numair, who had wilted a little. "Show me again, mage," she said, and while her voice was kind there was a note of steel in it.

Daine propped Numair up, and he held out the box. The Goddess did not touch it.

She frowned. "… I see," she murmured. "I can feel my sister; however I do not know how you trapped her. It is alien magic."

“Not—not magic,” said a soft voice, and Alanna swung her eyes around: the stranger named Tosh, who had come through with Ianto, looked both earnest and unsure. "With—with all due respect," she added, "I can show you, if you want."

The Goddess eyed her haughtily. Where she had been kind but commanding in Alanna’s experience, here she showed blatant disapproval. "Perhaps. This upsets the balance here." Her eyes turned back to Jack. "Necromancy disrupts our world, and the holes that you have drilled make our Father ill. I have half a mind to send you away, Jack Harkness. And many of my siblings would not protest!"

No. No. Not after everything: it was unacceptable. "Goddess, please," Alanna entreated, but the Goddess held up a hand. Obedience to this particular figure was engrained: her mouth snapped shut.

Alanna had great love for the Goddess, it was true. But part of her thought, _well, that’s annoying._

The Goddess turned back to Jack. Ianto looked braced to jump in front of him if she attempted to harm Jack, but the Guardian brayed before anything more could be said. He brayed again when he had everyone’s attention, tossing his horned head and lashing his long, thin tail. There was a silence after that.

"We did you _all_ a favor," Ianto broke in quietly. "And if I know my mythology, I think that this means that we get a favor in return."

"We bargained for life, Goddess," Rikash added. His feathers clinked against each other when he ruffled them. "A second chance. Harkness may have displeased you, but _we_ did not."

"Your bargain is with Gainel and the Black God, not with me," the Goddess said.

“ _Pantheons_ ,” Alanna heard Ianto mutter in disgust.

"However,” she continued over him, “my elder pleads your case.” She inclined her head to the Guardian, who snorted at her like an enormous bull.  “Perhaps,” she told him. “I have been sent here to punish you, Jack Harkness, but the Guardian of the Gates does not wish it so, for the sake of his rescuers. I believe that we may need to call a council once more. How does that sound to you, Uncle?"

The Guardian brayed and stomped a foot, and the Goddess nodded. "Very well."

The world faded to black.


	24. Chapter 23

Rikash's moan of dismay was audible.

"I'm not going back here!" Jack's friend Owen shouted, and his voice broke in obvious fear. "I made a bargain! I'm supposed to go to the Realms of the Dead!" Light bloomed around him, and he strode forward in the darkness, looking around with an air of desperation.

But Daine had a fair idea of what was happening. She’d been here before, after all, and even in a similar state, collapsed on the ground.

Numair, however, hadn’t. He started to shake against her, exhausted and frightened. It was very dark, after all. Daine hushed him, stroking his arm.

He was still holding that terrible box. In the darkness, the smoke almost glowed, and in her magical vision it felt—bad. It must feel bad to Numair, too, she thought, and gently took it from him. She set it on the ground. 

Numair looked back at her, apparently too exhausted to comment on the box. Uusoae had done something to him, she thought anxiously, but she wasn’t sure what. She stroked his cheek, and he leaned into her palm, trying for a smile. She felt herself return it a little weakly.

 Her strength was slowly coming back; here, in this court, exhaustion was not something that lasted. She looked behind her shoulder and caught Jack's eye. He was standing stiffly beside his Ianto, but when he saw Daine nod he relaxed, just a little.

 _\--Yes, you did, little spitfire. Relax. You are safe,—_ Gainel's voice was whispering to Owen, and the darkness rippled. Owen let out a shaky breath. 

"Trickster's teeth," Daine heard George gasp, and light slowly bloomed around them.

"Might wanna watch the swearwords, sweetheart!" crowed a voice. Kyprioth, the Trickster god, winked at George from where he was leaning on a column. Daine saw George grope nervously for Alanna.

They were standing in a great courtyard, floored with pale marble. The sky above was split in two; one half was a dark, cloudless night spattered with stars and the other was daylight, high noon. Spread around in a loose circle, sitting on thrones or lips of fountains, or leaning on columns, was every god in the expansive Tortallan pantheon. It was a familiar sight to Daine's eyes. She sighed.

She gripped Numair’s arm tightly, and then started to struggle to her feet. He made a choked sound, but she hushed him again, and made it, though she certainly felt wobbly. Numair made another noise in the back of his throat. He did not rise, but he lifted the receptacle off the ground again, as if worried that someone might step on it.

She took a steading breath. "I was under the impression that I was not allowed back here," she said to the assembly as a whole. There was a scuffle in the back and a familiar woman with heavy, curled golden hair pushed her way towards them, followed by a horned man in a loincloth. Daine could not stop the delighted smile that lit her face.

"Special circumstance," said her mother, rushing forward.

She came up short.

Jack had dodged away from his Ianto and lunged for Daine, coming to skidding halt to stand in front of her protectively. He was breathing hard and fast, clearly frightened. Silent as a shadow, Ianto slipped in front of her as well, and stood shoulder to shoulder with Jack. Though their protection was unnecessary, Daine was touched.

Her Ma was not touched. Nor was her father: Weiryn strode up behind Sarra and, placing a hand on her shoulder, locked eyes with Jack. He stood firm, an imposing figure, his great antlers sharp and proud.

"I take it we have you to thank for getting our daughter in trouble," he growled.

Jack tilted up his chin, all defiance, not at all cowed by the horned man. Even Ianto straightened his spine, braced as though for impact.  

Daine sighed. She reached out and touched Jack’s arm. "It's alright, Jack," Daine murmured. Those blue eyes swung to her anxiously. "These are my parents."

"Godborn," Daine heard Ianto mutter quietly. "Right."

Jack’s eyes, locked on hers, softened considerably with affection. He gave her a small nod. Jack stepped a little to the left, but did not leave her side. He met Weiryn dead in the eye, without any fear in him.

"She followed of her own free will," Jack said.

Kitten appeared with a small, silver pop, and then cantered up to Daine, scolding. She stopped short, and then looked up at Jack, and kept on scolding. Daine saw Ianto jump at the sight of her. 

"It isn't Jack's fault," Daine told her Da. “And Kit, stop that and come here, that’s rude.”

Kitten all but growled at her, instead stomping over to stand by Jack’s feet, tail lashing. Daine didn’t really have the energy to scold her and anyway, she agreed with her. Jack needed the support more than she did at the moment.

There was a soft rustle behind her, and then a hand, shaking a little, landed on her shoulder. Numair’s familiar smell and touch were comforting, but not a little alarming. Should he be standing? She twisted around to look up at him.

He was still very pale, and he was definitely swaying. In his other hand he held the receptacle, still steaming its sticky smoke. "We were only trying to help," he told Weiryn quietly.

"You should know better, mage," he said, although his eyes did not leave Jack's challenging gaze.

"My lord Weiryn—"

" ** _SILENCE!_** " Mithros, God of Sun and Shield, rose from his golden throne. The little cluster of mortals, dead and alive, flinched. Daine heard even Rikash shift his weight uneasily at the tone, feathers whispering together.

Jack did not move away from Daine. He didn’t even bat an eye. Kitten shrilled in protest, only silenced when George strode forward and scooped her up and held her muzzle closed. Daine's parents stepped back.

"This is not their concern." Mithros' voice was stern. "Return to your places, Green Lady and Weiryn. Your daughter will not be harmed. In fact, I would send her back immediately; this hardly concerns her."

"It does concern me," Daine replied hotly over Numair's warning hiss and Jack's frantic denial. " _Whatever_ happens to my friends concerns me; with all due respect, highness, I'm staying. We're all staying!"

"Are you _insane_?" Numair hissed. He squeezed her shoulder tightly, communicating that not only was he terrified by her recklessness, but also that he would stand by her regardless. The touch was welcome. Speaking to a counsel of the Great Gods was not necessarily her favorite thing, but at least she had the benefit of experience.

"Well, it runs in my family," Alanna put in. "I stand by my friends," she proclaimed loudly.

Daine saw George, holding Kitten around the middle, shrug. "And I by my wife, however mad she may be," he said, and the Trickster God in the corner cackled.

Jack gave them all a pained look. "Don't," he said urgently. "It'll get you killed, or worse—I don't want you to go against your gods—"

"I think we've all said our piece, Jack," Alanna told him, intense and loyal, and voicing exactly what Daine was thinking. "We're with you." Kitten chattered in agreement, although George quickly silenced her again.

"That may prove foolish," Mithros boomed, now rising to approach Jack. "You have directly disobeyed my orders—"

"He is the beloved of one of my saviors," the Guardian said mildly, and Daine turned to stare at him, startled. He’d been bleating just a second before. It wasn’t often she couldn’t understand someone animal-shaped, and it was even less often that one she couldn’t understand rapidly became someone she could.

The Guardian of the Gates had not disappeared; he stood a little apart from them, holding the orange rope in his hands. Daine had not seen him watching, but now as he fixed his strange goat's eyes on all of them, she realized that he had been there for the whole time.

"I was under the impression that you only spoke goat," Ianto told him dryly from where he was standing beside Jack. Daine let out a huff of laughter—he hadn’t even spoken goat!

 The Guardian nickered a little, like the ram he wasn't.

"Here, in this court, we speak together," he explained gently and turned back to Mithros. Daine had a sudden flash of hope; the Guardian of the Gates was surely beyond gods, wasn't he? He was on the same level as Father Universe and Mother Flame. If anyone could help them, it was him.

"Uncle, our Father has worsened—" Mithros began.

"I will tend my brother," the Guardian said, massive head held high. "But I do believe there was a bargain with these." Here he indicated the dead mortals. A god in a dark cowl rose from a shadowy seat and approached Owen.

"Indeed, you are right. Owen Harper," the Black God said, and Owen, who before had been fidgeting like a nervy horse, relaxed. "You bargained for free access into my realms. You have served the Dream God well. Will you rest in peace?"

Owen took a breath. He shot a glance to the woman called Tosh. "Yes," he said with more respect than Daine had expected, given how he had spoken to Gainel earlier. "I will rest. Sorry," he added quietly to Tosh. She seemed to understand what he was apologizing for, because she nodded. The Black God raised his hand and Owen began to fade.

"Nice dreaming of you," Jack told him wistfully and Daine's heart gave a pang for her friend. "Sleep well, Owen."

"Not getting rid of me that easily, Harkness," Owen said. He had turned even more translucent, fading like morning fog. "I plan on haunting you; how does that sound?" He vanished.

"Sounds good," Jack whispered, voice heavy with grief. Daine saw Tosh look down to her feet and give a small, aborted breath. Ianto reached out to her, but of course he, too, was insubstantial in the court of the gods.

There was something terribly heartbreaking in that gesture, Daine thought.

"Thank you," Daine said to the empty space where Owen had been standing. They owed Owen quite a lot, after all.

"Ianto Jones and Rikash Moonsword," The Black God turned towards them. Daine saw Jack stand up straighter, even though he could not touch Ianto. "You, too, made a bargain, although you are out of my jurisdiction. Daughter?" He turned, and Daine saw the Graveyard Hag stand and limp towards the front of the assembly.

"You," Ianto growled and to Daine's surprise he sidestepped and came to stand in front of Jack protectively. Clearly Ianto remembered the Hag, and that terrible night.

"Me." She smiled unpleasantly as she limped over. "I don't know, Father," she added to the Black God, eyes still fixed on the two uneasy men. "To bring Ianto Jones back to life would please Harkness greatly. And surely, my punishment includes suspension from some of my powers?"

"You still owe me favors," Jack snapped.

"You did not complete your bargain," Mynoss, the Judgment God, said calmly.

"But he did!" Daine cried. Numair's hand tightened nervously on her shoulder. She heard Kitten muttering, but George had a firm hand around her muzzle. 

"Daine, stay out of it—" Jack hissed.

"He found—"Alanna started, but the Guardian of the Gates interrupted fiercely. Wielding his spear, he advanced on the Hag.

"This is not about Jack Harkness," he said. "This is about those that freed me. Return the favor, Hag."

"That," the Hag pointed to a scowling Rikash as though he were something particularly nasty that had turned up on her doorstep, "is not my jurisdiction. Dead Immortals have no gods."

Rikash ruffled his feathers. “And we don’t want them,” he said shortly.

"Then tie him to the mortal," the Guardian snapped over Rikash’s retort. Daine glanced at Numair, feeling confused, but her mage's eyes had gone wide, staring incredulously at the Hag. Clearly, he knew what was happening. Daine had no idea. She looked around: Alanna and George looked equally perplexed, and Jack just looked alarmed, but he had been from the start.

"I think that's my Aunt’s jurisdiction," the Hag said mildly, and the Guardian of the Gates snorted like an irate bull.

"Shakith, All Seer—" the Guardian boomed, and his voice brooked no argument.

A thin, wiry woman stood from her throne, eyes filmed with cataracts. "As you wish, Uncle. Rikash Moonsword and Ianto Jones—live so long as the other shall live. I tie you together." She raised her hand and waved it carelessly. "Niece." Clearly blind, she did not bother to turn her head. "I suggest you do as he asks. It is not often that we see our Uncle, and you are under punishment for waking this man in the first place; only fitting that you should finish the job."

The Hag set her teeth and marched over. Jack made an aborted motion, but she was quicker than him: her hand snapped forward and closed around Ianto’s arm. He flinched visibly.

“I—ha—huh,” he said. He blinked at her hand. He didn’t look any more solid than he had before, Daine thought. In fact, he looked a little less so, as thin as morning mist. Jack growled lowly, warningly.

The Hag ignored both of them. She looked at the Stormwing.

"I want flowers on my alter," she snarled at Rikash, and then turned to Ianto. "You too, handsome. You can spend the rest of your mortal life begging my forgiveness."

White light bloomed, bright enough to hurt her eyes. Daine looked away. She heard Rikash cry out. When the light faded, Daine saw the goddess release Ianto in disgust.

As though winded, he stumbled back. Jack gave a small, alarmed sound and made to steady his elbow by instinct. He connected; Ianto staggered into him, and Jack's hands shifted, trying to help. It didn’t quite work. Jack followed him down, kneeling and catching Ianto under his arms, Ianto's back to his front, and they stared at each other.

"Hi," Jack whispered down at him.

"Hello," Ianto breathed, looking up.

They were motionless for a moment. Ianto's eyes were shining up at Jack, and even Daine could see the disbelief and the sudden, fierce hope that curled Jack's lips into a breathless smile.

“Thanks terribly so for the help!” Rikash complained. He picked himself up off the ground in a rattle of steel feathers. Shocked and elated, Daine gave a small laugh. Rikash was as solid as Ianto was—he was alive again. He met her eye, and the smile that curled his lips was almost as bright as hers. He shook his head as if in victory, and the bones braided in his matted blond hair clicked and clacked. Behind her, Daine heard Numair give a disbelieving breath.

But there was still one more. Daine looked away from Rikash. Standing off center and alone was Tosh.

She hadn’t known about Tosh. Numair—beloved, stupid, forgetful Numair—had not mentioned her. She’d be having words with him about that later; it was not as bad a mistake as when he’d forgotten to tell her that he was alive that time in Carthak, but it came close. But she’d apparently helped him fix the receptacle, and she was one of Jack’s—one of Torchwood.

And she was still standing there.

 Still insubstantial, she was gazing at her friends with a faint smile, but her posture was uneasy. She had not been brought back to life or sent to death.

That was unacceptable.

"And what about Tosh?" Daine asked. She would stride towards her, but her legs still felt a little rubbery, and Numair’s hand on her shoulder was as much for emotional support was it was for physical. He was leaning on her fairly heavily.

"She has no bargain," Mynoss replied offhandedly and Daine spluttered at his carelessness.

" _What?_ " Jack, Ianto and Rikash chorused. Tosh stared at the god wide-eyed, apparently speechless.

"She trapped your Chaos Queen!" Jack snarled.

He set Ianto back on his feet carefully and then strode over to Tosh, whom he also obviously loved. "She fixed the mechanism, she—"

“She found us in the Void,” Ianto interrupted heatedly. “You gave her the power to cross realms. We never would have made it out without her. Surely you owe her a favor for that. Surely you _bargained_ for a favor?” The last was directed towards Tosh, not so much accusatory as alarmed.

“I—I think I _was_ the favor,” she whispered. Ianto let out a horrified breath.

"She is not from this place," Mithros declared. "She is not welcome here.”

"She saved my life; she is always welcome here!" the Guardian said hotly.

"You're going to send me back?" Tosh asked once the echoes of the Guardian's statement had died. She sounded both frightened and indignant. "After all that, you're going to send me back?"

"Let her into the Realms of the Dead, at least," Alanna said suddenly. "Not back to the darkness, my Lord Mithros. She helped us; we'd have been lost without her."

“We never would have found the Guardian without her,” Ianto insisted. “We would have been lost in the Void.”

"The Chaos Queen would've escaped," Daine added, thinking quickly. Numair’d said she helped fix the box, and without the box, Chaos would have consumed them all. "And the Guardian would have been trapped. We needed her."

There was a silence. Jack leaned into Tosh as if to protect her.

She didn’t need the protection. "Yes," she said whispered and then repeated it, more strongly.  She stepped away from Jack. "Yes. Send me to your Realms of the Dead, if they’re better than the darkness. You owe me. I helped catch your Chaos. You—you must owe me for that."

"They do," growled the Guardian. "I would have remained trapped without her. Do not send her back to that terrible place."

More silence. And then, "Brother. I want to do this thing." The Black God was sitting quietly on his throne, head under the hood cocked a little to the side, as if curious. "The darkness beyond my realm is unbearable, and by ancient law indeed we owe her. Besides," he added, sounding almost amused, “Imagine what sorts of stories she could tell. She is from a different world.”

"The temptation you feel is the very reason I should forbid it,” Mithros said sourly.

“She did us a favor, brother,” the Black God replied.

“Very well," Mithros muttered, sounding almost sullen. The Black God raised his palm, and Tosh began to fade.

As she faded, her uncertain look lightened into a smile. "Oh,” she said, “oh, this _is_ better. Thank you.” She smiled at the Black God and then turned to Jack and Ianto. “It's been the best," she told them both softly, earnestly, before she vanished.

"Yeah," Jack whispered.

The Guardian bowed. "And now, sons and daughters of the Universe, I take my leave. These affairs are out of my hands. I ask only that you go gently on those that my saviors love, if only because I would like to see them unhurt. Farewell."

There were numerous calls of "Farewell, Uncle," and the Guardian of the Gates disappeared.

"And now," the Goddess said, turning to Jack. "The hard part."

\---

_What have you done?_

"I looked into the TARDIS and the TARDIS looked into me."

_You looked into the Time Vortex, Rose, no one's meant to see that!_

But she is. For the Bad Wolf, only one moment exists, one moment and all of time. It does not play over; it exists once, and for all eternity.

But she is mortal enough to want to save her friend. She sees the Universe, and is unable to distinguish the death of Jack on Satellite Five from every other death he dies. It is all one, and she reverses it.

It is difficult to see Time from where she stands. A mortal might see Time as a line, as if looking at it from the side: one day after another after another. She looks at it from above, days all stacked, and sees only a point. The Bad Wolf cannot distinguish one moment from another. It happens before, during, after, _always_. And it _hurts_.

Jack hurts. Through all of time, Jack hurts.

She cannot fix her beloved Doctor, but maybe she can help mend Jack. She broke him first, last, always, after all. She does not make the mistake twice.

The concept of _after_ is difficult, but her mortal self remembers: after the horror, after the death, after the act that will break him…

There is a place, in the far reaches. It is _other._ It is so far that she can almost see Time in a line. She can give him a gift. She sends him to that place. Reality bends and somewhere a creature called Father Universe screams as she forces her will upon him.

"Everything must come to dust. All things. Everything dies," she threatens, and pushes a Guardian away to let Jack through. She does not notice the wisp of Chaos that curls in her wake.

The Bad Wolf is not a god. She is beyond gods. She is beyond worlds, and she is beyond stars and she is certainly beyond Chaos. She has no jurisdiction—the word does not apply. She can see everything, and everything obeys her, in the end. Even gods.

And, in this moment, in every moment, she wants to help her friends, because she loves her friends. Even if, in this moment, in every moment, she destroys them.

Jack Harkness will not die. But, she thinks as she takes the fabric of reality and the hearts and minds of the children of that Universe and _twists_ , perhaps he will not always be alone.


	25. Chapter 24

"The easy part, I should think," Ianto snapped. He yelped when Rikash cuffed him.

Alanna winced. Those wings were sharp. Ianto apparently learned that the hard way: he gasped, putting his hand to his cheek and staring when it came away red.

She gave a little sigh. Alanna summoned up her healing magic. Unlike Numair, who had been using his Gift all through their travels and then had been grabbed by the Chaos Queen herself, Alanna had actually been able to recover a little from the disaster with the Nepthalae.

"I'm tied to you," Rikash was growling to Ianto, red marks appearing on his cheek to mirror the cuts on Ianto's. "If you do something stupid and get killed, then I get killed, too. Let's keep our lives, shall we?"

"Yes, I like that idea," Jack muttered. He reached to touch Ianto's bleeding face in concern. At Ianto's formidable glare he pulled back. Ianto swiped at his cheek, smearing the blood.

She strode over to help heal him. She figured that Ianto, like Jack, would have little to no experience with the Gift. When she reached him, she smiled and held out a hand that glowed. Ianto startled back.

“Will you let me heal you?” she asked. Ianto looked at her hand, and then flicked his eyes up to hers uncertainly.

Jack gave her a grateful smile. "This is Alanna. She's a healer," he explained.

“That—was rather obvious,” Ianto muttered, but he still seemed uncertain. Impressing her, he took a brave step forward and nodded. The red marks on Rikash's face disappeared as Alanna healed the cuts on Ianto's cheek.

"If I _may_ interrupt?" the Graveyard Hag scoffed, brandishing her staff. "Mithros, Lord of Sun and Shield," she said grandly, voice far stronger than her form would suggest. She pointed an accusing finger to Jack. "This one defies the natural order of the world. He is immortal; he breathes life back into himself each time he is destroyed. He brings aliens from other worlds to make our Father ill; he openly defies us. I request we throw him out beyond our Father's reach and watch him drift in space."

That sounded terrible. What was even out in space? Alanna opened her mouth to protest, but Ianto cut her off.

"No!" he cried. Behind him, Alanna saw Rikash roll his eyes. "You owe me a favor, don't you? Send me back to the darkness, if you have to. Spare him."

"Don't you _dare,_ Ianto Jones," Jack snarled, reaching forward to grasp his arm. "I lost you once; I won't do it again!"

"As his bonded brother, I refuse," Rikash stated mildly. Ianto spluttered indigently at him.

"It is a possibility," the Goddess said thoughtfully, tapping her chin. Alanna made a small dismayed sound in her throat. George came up beside her and reached out with the hand not holding Kitten to squeeze her shoulder supportively. She'd been married to him long enough to know what he was trying to communicate: _The Goddess may be your patron, but that doesn't mean she's nice._

Alanna touched his hand to show that she understood. She just didn't like it.

"And look how it hurts him," the Hag purred gleefully.

She was a god. Alanna hadn’t gotten to her station by disrespecting the gods. But Jack was her friend, so she glared at the Hag.

Kitten, still under George’s other arm, shrieked a protest. George flinched palpably beside her and took his hand off her shoulder to silence the dragon again.

Alanna steeled herself, and then spoke.

"If I may request audience on behalf of our friend?" she said, no longer able to quietly watch. She took a deep breath as all eyes swung to her.  That was—an awful lot of gods, but Alanna hadn’t reached her station by taking the easy or even the advisable road, either. She held up her chin and looked at the Goddess who was, if nothing else, at least a familiar face.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Jack shake his head slowly in helpless denial, but Alanna ignored him. She didn’t need him to tell her not to do this, that it was dangerous. She didn’t need his protection—he needed hers.

"Speak then, my daughter," the Goddess said softly. Alanna kept her eyes fixed on her patron, and began.  

"I address the allegation that holds Jack responsible for the aliens," Alanna said. She knew to project her voice so she at least sounded confident, never mind that she wanted to crawl into a hole and hide. "This is hardly his fault, and with the Guardian back in place," here she nodded to the place where the Guardian had stood before he vanished, "that will not happen anymore."

"We refer to the holes torn in Father Universe's very body," the Goddess told her with surprising gentleness, "by those disgusting creatures."

"But it was necessary!" Daine cried, frighteningly bold in front of _the entire pantheon_ , "If we hadn't done that, we'd've never been able to bring the Guardian back! How can you expect Jack to fetch him without crossing Realms?"

"We were hoping he would find another way," Mithros replied dryly.

"Such as?" Jack asked. "No, seriously, I really would like to know how you thought—"

"You requested ten favors," Mynoss interrupted, his voice matter of fact. "You could have used those."

"You never made that clear!" Daine cried.

Behind Alanna, there was a scuffle. Kitten, in George’s arms, was growling and muttering. Alanna felt George shift again, fighting against the squirming dragon, who clearly wanted to break free.

" _Veralidaine!_ " said the god Weiryn, Daine's father, much the same way George was scolding Kitten.

Alanna swallowed again. Only Daine would have the audacity to yell at the Great Gods, she thought with exasperation.

"It was as clear as we could make it," Mithros growled.

 _\--Forgive me, my brother,--_ Gainel stepped in quietly.

The Sun God glared at him. Alanna felt a small lick of amusement: Mithros was giving Gainel the same look she gave her children when they came to her, having done something naughty. Mithros looked braced for news that would displease him.

"Yes?" he asked.

 _\--The action was sudden. The dead mortals of Harkness' world had found the Guardian and he was dying, caught in the Other space; when Owen Harper came to me with the news that the aliens could stride across worlds I did not think twice. I permitted the transaction.—_ The Dream God gave an apologetic shrug.

Hope surged in Alanna’s heart.

"You would defend Harkness?" growled the Hag. Alanna shifted her weight uncomfortably and she saw Jack clenching his fists. She said nothing. Even Kitten had gone still behind her, listening. Alanna heard George breathe a little easier.

 _\--I remain always with one foot in Chaos,--_ Gainel remarked mildly. He inclined his head to Mynoss. _–I am as much at fault for this particular transaction as he is. Forgive me. –_

"You will be confined to your realms for a hundred years as punishment," Mynoss stated. The judgment had no cruelty in it, but it was clearly final.

 _\--Am I still permitted to visit the dreams of mortals?—_ Gainel asked meekly.

"He meant well, brother," Mithros muttered.

"Indeed. Visit dreams, but do not involve yourself in heavy mortal affairs. You are regulated to commoners and not nobles, for your allotted time," Mynoss replied mildly, as though stating the weather.

Gainel bowed deeply. He vanished, presumably to go back to his realms.

"Anything else you would like to add?" the Hag asked Alanna, all jeering politeness. "Before we jettison Harkness out into space?"

Kitten shrieked. Behind her, Alanna heard George cursing as he tried to wrangle her back under some semblance of control.

Ianto spluttered a protest under the dragon’s scream. Jack clamped down, hard, on his arm. "Hush." Jack threw a wide-eyed glance to Alanna, who felt a surge of panic. Nothing came to mind.

"If I may speak?" Numair asked quietly, stepping forward. Alanna would have thanked the gods for Numair's quick thought, whatever it may be, but they – all of them—were standing before her. She tried not to think about it. "Clearly, you're displeased with him." He nodded his head a little to Jack. "And apparently his presence makes the Lord Father Universe ill, as do the weevils." Numair looked a little ill himself at the thought, though mostly he just looked ill: he still hadn’t recovered. "However, should you send Jack away, we would be unable to deal with the remaining weevils left."

"They follow him," Mynoss stated. "Would they not leave if he left as well?"

"No," Ianto said, sounding almost surprised that he had an answer. "They wouldn't. If there's a stable source of food, they'd stay."

"Or if they did leave," Alanna added, taking the argument and running with it, "they'd cut up more holes."

There was a silence and a low murmur began to arise amongst the assembled gods.

"What do you suggest, then?" the Mother Goddess asked, looking at Alanna. The other gods fell silent, waiting.

She had another horrifying moment, where she couldn’t think of anything. And then it came to her. "Jack is the only one who knows how to deal with the weevils," she said. "Allow him to stay; give him another chance. He can hunt them for you."

"Ianto Jones knows," the Black God whispered from his corner.

"Ianto Jones _won't,_ unless Jack's here," Ianto snapped. Alanna wanted to cheer. She hardly knew this beloved of Jack's, but she liked what she saw of him and, with that statement, he'd just won her wholehearted approval.

"Would you hold your tongue?" Rikash hissed, but Ianto glared at him.

"Don't get yourself killed over me _again_ ," Jack whispered, pained. He was talking to Ianto, but then he looked at Alanna. His eyes were blue and infinitely sad—why sad?

"We are not pleased with this arrangement," Mithros growled. "And we want the weevils destroyed. Not held in a box," he added, pointing an imperious finger at—Numair?

Numair blinked at him, at all of them when they looked at him. He had one hand on Daine’s shoulder, and, as though realizing at the same time as everyone else, he held up his other hand, in which the storage receptacle sat.

“Oh,” he said.

As though unable to contain himself, Jack barked out a laugh. He walked over to Numair and very gently, almost tenderly, took the receptacle from him. “What about the Black God?” Jack asked.

"They go to the darkness," the Black God said quietly. "They are not permitted in my realms."

That was why Jack looked so upset, Alanna realized. He’d been three steps ahead of her. He’d seen where this would go: Jack’s liberty for the weevils’ deaths. He could stay, and slaughter the weevils, or he could go, and leave the world forever.

It had been her idea, she thought, guilt sinking slowly into her bones.

It was one thing to remove the weevils—Alanna hunted tauroses, hurroks and killer unicorns for what they were. That was the way life worked; they were killers, and her duty was to protect her people. She even suspected that they went to the dark, too. But this—this was something different. This bargain was not a kind one, for all that it bought her a friend. They were paying for him in blood, and as she realized it, the guilt in her bones twisted to nausea, a sick feeling somewhere in her gut.

 She saw Jack look down and take a step away from Numair.

There must be a better bargain to be made. She looked to Numair, to Daine, to George. Daine looked heartbroken. This wasn’t fair. This wasn’t a good choice. She looked at Ianto, red eyed and hopeless. He knew it, too. She looked back at Jack.  

His eyes were old and so, so sad. It was a choice with two bad outcomes: this wasn’t even the first one like this for him, she realized. He’d done this before, made choices like this before. Lots of times.

He looked exhausted.

He wanted to stay. She could see that he wanted to stay, that he was selfish enough to want to stay, consequence be damned. Who could blame him? He’d just been handed his lover on a silver platter, but he was noble enough to know that it was wrong. He couldn’t bear to agree to it, but it hurt too much to refuse. He was trapped.

So was she. If she told him to go, he’d go. She knew that as surely as she knew her own name. In fact, if no one told him to stay, he would also go. That was the obvious choice, terrible though it was. But she couldn’t let him just leave, not when he had already lost so much, not when he stood a chance to get some of it back. Not when he tried so hard to help them. The horror of this choice, one that had been her idea, choked her.

She saw him take a breath. He was going to leave.  

But George spoke first. "Jack for the weevils,” he said thoughtfully. “What would you do otherwise?"

She blinked at him. George stood calmly, just a little behind her. Kitten had stopped struggling in his grasp and instead was looking out at all of them, wide-eyed. That was an odd question.

"I would hunt them," the Goddess said.

Oh, Alanna thought.

"As would I," Weiryn agreed.

“They are not permitted in my realms in either case,” the Black God said mildly.

George shrugged. “Changes the game, that does,” he told Alanna, and threw a wink at Jack. “They’re dead anyway. Might as well get somethin’ out of it.”

That was—Alanna let out a breath. The terror of the choice evaporated. He was right. She wasn’t sure if she felt relieved, or sickened that they were benefiting out of slaughter. She wasn’t sure if she felt grateful to George or horrified that he’d thought of that.

Or horrified that he was right. Or horrified that she was _relieved_.

"So this is one less thing on your to-do list," Jack said bitterly. "Fine. I'll take that bargain."

"And what will we do with Queen Uusoae, brother?" asked the Black God. He nodded to the receptacle, which Jack held casually in his hand.

The Graveyard Hag scowled. "Wait," she spat. "We're not finished here, father! You still haven't punished Harkness."

"How the hell do you plan to punish me?" Jack asked. “I’m already killing a bunch of people for you, _and I can’t die._ ” His voice was dark and full of self-loathing. Alanna shared an uneasy look with George. She heard Ianto hiss a little in protest.

"—without punishing us," Rikash added dryly. “We actively helped you.” Ianto snapped something intelligible at him. The Stormwing ignored him.

The hall went silent. All eyes went to Jack, who shifted his weight uneasily.

"A wanderer," whispered Mynoss into the silence. His voice echoed weirdly in the open space. "The Lone Wolf."

"Protected by the Bad Wolf," Mithros growled.

"The Face of Boe," added Shakith the All-Seer quietly. "But that must come later. I will place a curse on you, Jack Harkness, if my brother will allow it." She rose to stand and spoke grandly, her blind eyes fixed not on Jack but beyond him. "You will stay in the country of Tortall for a thousand years, forbidden to wander the lands and stars beyond her borders. Should you leave, or should my brother cast you out—" she nodded to Mithros, "I would change you; I would use my magic to transform your body and mind so that it will be unrecognizable. Should you die and be reborn, you would not regain the form to which you have become accustomed. Does this fit, brother?" She looked at Mithros.

"So we're stuck with him for a thousand years?" the Graveyard Hag demanded.

"Perhaps," Shakith said.

"Five hundred," Mithros boomed. "I want him to leave after five hundred. A thousand is just as maddening to us as it would be to him. And then I want him _gone._ " He glared.

"Very well. Should you return after the allotted five hundred years, I will do the same, Jack Harkness."

Jack gave a little salute. "Right then. That's it?"

The Graveyard Hag growled, but said nothing.

"It is a pity that you cannot die," the Black God stated mildly. "Although perhaps, I should think of it as a blessing. Brother, I believe it is time for us to discuss our wayward sister Uusoae, and that is not a thing for mortals or even Immortals to witness.” He stood from his pedestal, and strode down towards them.

Alanna had met the Black God once before. She’d once pulled King Jonathan back from his realm, when they’d been pages together. She tensed when he came closer, but of course this god, out of all of them, could not hurt Jack.  

He held out a hand. “May I have your box, Captain Harkness?”

Jack looked deep into his cowl. The set of his shoulders relaxed. “Yeah, sure.” He held it out. The Black God reached for it.

There was a strange moment where it seemed that the god’s fingers, extended, stretched into a limitless space between them. He reached for the box, but he was too far away, even though they were standing close. Then Jack, smiling wryly, took a step back.

“Catch,” he said, and tossed it. The god caught it with a quiet chuckle. 

“For all your faults, you will keep our world interesting, Captain Harkness,” the Black God said. He sounded amused. “Strange times indeed. Where is Veralidaine's guardian?" he added, going back to his pedestal.

"Right where we left him," growled Daine's father.

 _\--Here,--_ the badger waddled out from where he had been sitting under a fountain. _–And just because I did a favor for you doesn't mean I'm a_ pet _, you horned nuisance.—_

Weiryn huffed but he beckoned his daughter. Daine moved away from Numair to say her farewells to her parents.

"You again," Jack muttered unhappily.

Kitten chattered a scolding to Jack and wriggled out of George’s grasp at last. George muttered a muffled curse of surprise as the dragon escaped. She trotted up to the badger god, warbling a greeting.

 _\--I am to escort you back,--_ the badger said, looking at the small cluster of assembled mortals. _–Since this little one's grandfather forbade the Great Gods to do it. —_ He gave Kitten a friendly swipe with his claw that she easily dodged. _– It will take rather more power than I would be capable of alone, but they will help me, just this once._ – He indicated the Great Gods and then turned to Jack. _\--You'll want to be careful, Harkness. They're not pleased,—_ he added. _– Come, Kit,--_ he beckoned Daine.

Daine gave her mother one last kiss on the cheek, her father one last hug, and then walked over to them.

"Hello, Badger," she smiled.

 _\--Greetings, my kit,--_ the badger said warmly, and the world faded to black.


	26. Chapter 25

The first thing that Jack noticed was that something nudged him, hard, between the shoulder blades. He stumbled, staggering, and only Ianto's quick reflexes kept him from falling. Ianto gripped his elbow and Jack caught his breath, grinning at him. Ianto's slow smile in reply was enough to make Jack’s heart turn over, and brighten his grin almost to glowing.

Something nudged him again.

"What the—" Jack said, reluctantly turning away from Ianto.

Red was glaring down his black and white nose at Jack, ears flat against his skull. They were back in their campgrounds, Jack realized, where the weevils had opened the Gates. It was mid-afternoon, or it looked it anyway, and it was bright enough that the leaves of the trees did not block out all the light, instead turning the forest green and gold.

Jack wanted to laugh. He looked over and saw Cloud giving Daine similar treatment and he couldn't stop another beaming grin.

"Yes, I know," Daine was saying, "It's not exactly something I could help!"

 _\--Hush.—_ That was the badger, and everyone turned to face it, even Red, although the dappled gelding was still huffing indignantly at Jack's back. Ianto stood at his side, looking nonplused. Jack wanted to kiss him, to crush him close, or at least take his hand.

  _–You disobeyed Mithros' order, and the Great Gods are displeased with you,—_ the badger stated, looking Jack dead in the eye. Jack scowled. Way to ruin his good mood, he thought, starting to get tired of all the scolding. But Red's warmth at his back seeped slowly into his bones and Ianto's presence at one side and his friends on the other brought back the glow of earlier. The badger's words were inconsequential; Jack had not only seen his friends to a peaceful afterlife, but _also_ got Ianto back, and further his new friends had _gone up against their gods_ to speak for him. He was on top of the world. Nothing the animal could say could diminish it.

  _–However,--_ the badger continued _, -- I asked you a personal favor, Jack Harkness, and you succeeded in doing that. Therefore, I do believe that I owe you for it.—_

"You—what?" Jack asked, thrown. "When did that happen?"

 _\--I told you that there were terrible things to come in this realm. I was not wrong, and you did as I asked: you kept my kit and her mate safe.—_ The big black and white animal nodded to Daine and Numair.

"You bargained with the badger to keep us safe?" Daine asked incredulously, staring at him.

"You know, I did tell you that you would want to watch bargains made with gods," George said.

"I'll remember it for next time," Jack muttered. "But you're right," he added to the badger, still surprised. "I did."

 _\--And so in return,--_ the badger said, _\--I give you a gift. Lord Rikash and Ianto Jones would have the mortal's natural lifespan, under the Graveyard Hag's decree, as she is most displeased with you. They are bonded together; I cannot change this. However, I can reverse it: I can give Ianto Jones and Lord Rikash the Stormwing's lifespan, instead. Do you accept?—_

Jack stared at the badger, a thick, complicated emotion growing in his chest. "That's—forever. Rikash is an Immortal."

"Unless he's killed," the Stormwing put in dryly. "But yes. I agree to the terms."

Jack’s heart raced. He turned to Ianto. "It's up to you," he said, "I can only stay here for five hundred years—that's a drop in the bucket when you're immortal. You won't need to stay with me, of course—I wouldn't wish immortality on anyone—" his voice faded. He found that he wanted this so much he didn’t even have the words.

But it wasn’t fair to give someone else immortality without their say-so. Jack knew that first hand. Besides, immortality was hardly a gift. It was more like a curse. It was a terrible thing. He shouldn't, couldn't do that to Ianto. Not to Ianto. 

Ianto regarded him for a long moment. "It isn't true immortality," he said slowly. "I could still die."

"That's the only reason I'm even _considering_ it," Jack lied to him, heart pounding. He was considering it because he wanted it so badly he felt dizzy with it, and damn the consequences; he was discussing it with Ianto because the consequences mattered, and it was the right thing to do. "It isn't all hearts and flowers, immortality. It's lonely. Everyone dies." That, at least, was true.

"I'll have you," Ianto replied softly. It struck Jack in every vulnerable, hurting place he still had. How did Ianto still have this kind of faith in him? It had gotten him killed!

"And when I'm gone?" he insisted, "I don't know if you'll be able to leave this planet. And I don't want you obligated to me, Ianto. I told you once that I don't like the word 'couple.' I was a very bad husband, once upon a time."

It must have been unconvincing, because Ianto didn’t look put off. Jack realized belatedly that he’d taken a step forward and he was leaning towards Ianto, just a little, just enough. He could hear nothing over his own heartbeat and see nothing but Ianto's eyes, brought back from the dead. Ianto, who had died in his arms and broken his heart, alive again. 

Maybe alive forever. But he mustn't force it. Hope, something that he had extinguished long ago, roared to life. It hurt terribly. Immortality is cruel and miserable and lonely, Jack thought. Ianto shouldn't accept.

"I have this idiot, don't I?" Ianto said, tilting his head to indicate Rikash, who squawked indignantly. "I won't be alone, Jack. This world has a place for Immortals. And I'll still be able to die."

"There are things I have to tell you," Jack whispered, one last dissuasion. Ianto should know—before he committed himself to stay, he should know Jack's crimes. "About—about the Four-five-six. How I got rid of them—Ianto—"

"Later," Ianto murmured, stepping forward and touching Jack's arm. "You can tell me later. You _will_ tell me later." He glanced down at the badger. "I accept the terms," he added softly. "If—if Jack wants it."

Jack took a breath and nodded. He heaved a disbelieving, tearful laugh and cupped Ianto's cheeks in both his hands. Ianto gave him a small, encouraging smile.

It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Jack heaved another croaking laugh, leaned forward and kissed him. Ianto’s kiss was exactly what he had wanted, for so long—for _so_ long. Having it, finally, was like coming home, like taking a breath of fresh air after months and months. It was so sweet he could hardly bear it. He pulled back and grasped him in a desperate hug.

"Welcome to Tortall, Ianto Jones," Jack whispered joyfully into his ear, as the badger worked his magic. "You're going to hate it here."

And he kissed him again as white light surrounded them, and the Tortallans cheered.

Somewhere, somewhen, the Bad Wolf collapsed into her Doctor's arms, a job well done.

.

.

.

.

**THE END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end! Whew! Finally! So there's a series of one-shots that comes after this about those five hundred years that follow--including the Scanran War, with monsters who bear some resemblance to Cybermen but sound like children... 
> 
> Anyway, thank you for your patience, those of you who followed while I had kind of a weird year. Here's to the next one! :D


End file.
